Rapid Discrimination of Adulteration of Honey by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry

FT-IRS with attenuated total reflection (ATR) was applied to the rapid discrimination of adulteration of honey. Characteristic absorption peaks of honey mixed with various amounts of sucrose or glucose were compared and on the base of the difference in absorption peaks, adulteration of honey was determined. As treating the IR spectra of samples of honey mixed with various amounts of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) by the calculation software, two absorption peaks at 1 054 cm-1 and 817 cm-1 shown on the 2nd derivative spectra obtained were taken as the basis to judge accurately the amount of HFCS admixed. Values of detection limit of 3 admixtures, i.e., sucrose, glucose and HFCS were found same as 10%. The proposed method has the special features of requring less sample, simple and easy in operation, speedy analysis and feasible for use in large-scale randon checking and supervision.