Rapid Screening of Multiclass Syrup Adulterants in Honey by Ultrahigh-Performance Liquid Chromatography/Quadrupole Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Honey adulteration with sugar syrups is a widespread problem. Several types of syrups have been used in honey adulteration, and there is no available method that can simultaneously detect all of these adulterants. In this study, we generated a small-scale database containing the specific chromatographic and mass spectrometry information on sugar syrup markers and developed a simple, rapid, and effective ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC/Q-TOF-MS) method for the detection of adulterated honey. Corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, inverted syrup, and rice syrup were used as honey adulterants; polysaccharides, difructose anhydrides, and 2-acetylfuran-3-glucopyranoside were used as detection markers. The presence of 10% sugar syrup in honey could be easily detected in <30 min using the developed method. The results revealed that UHPLC/Q-TOF-MS was simple and rapid.

Determination of honey adulteration with beet sugar and corn syrup using infrared spectroscopy and genetic‐algorithm‐based multivariate calibration

“…Chromatographic methods have also been used to determine sugar composition, and these analytical methods have generally been coupled with mass spectrometry (MS) such as gas chromatography-MS and high-performance liquid chromatography-MS. Furthermore, gas chromatography 6,7 and high-performance liquid chromatography [8][9][10][11][12][13] are also used to detect adulterated honey samples. Moreover, carbon isotope ratio (C 12 /C 13 ) analysis [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] (IR-MS) is used as a standard technique to detect the presence of artificial sweeteners in honey.…”

Detection of syrup adulterants in manuka and jarrah honey using HPTLC-multivariate data analysis

“…Sugars play a vital role, not only in providing crucial nutrition to bee colonies, but also for maintaining the osmolality of the honey ( Olaitan, Adeleke & Ola, 2007 ) and thus its self-preservation. As the bulk of the honey is made of sugars, sugar adulterations are common ( Amiry, Esmaiili & Alizadeh, 2017 ), either by adding sugar syrups to the honey matrix to increase its bulk volume or by feeding bees with sugar syrups to increase honey production ( Du et al, 2015 ; Rios-Corripio, Rojas-López & Delgado-Macuil, 2012 ). Glucose syrup, maple syrup, rice syrup, brown rice syrup, treacle syrup, golden syrup and high fructose corn syrups are commonly used in post-harvest honey adulteration ( Abdel-Aal, Ziena & Youssef, 1993 ; Amiry, Esmaiili & Alizadeh, 2017 ; Chen et al, 2014 ; Ferreiro-González et al, 2018 ).…”

In Vivo Toxicity Evaluation of Sugar Adulterated Heterotrigona itama Honey Using Zebrafish Model

“…Here is a brief example of these studies; high-performance anion-exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection (HPAEC-PAD) for the detection of CS, and stable carbon isotope ratio analysis (SCIRA) for the detection of high fructose syrup (HFS) [ 11 ], GC-MS for the detection of CS [ 12 ], cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) and isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) for the detection of CS [ 13 ], Raman spectroscopy for the detection of CS [ 14 ], matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) for the detection of IS and CS [ 15 ], and headspace-gas chromatography coupled to ion mobility spectrometry (HS-GC-IMS) for the detection of CS [ 16 ]. On the other hand, ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC/Q-TOF-MS) was applied for indirect adulteration of honey through bee feeding with multi-class sugar syrups, such as CS and IS [ 17 ]. Hence, the liquid chromatography-electrochemical detection (LC-ECD) [ 18 ] and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) [ 19 ] methods were used for the detection of acacia honey blended with rape honey.…”