The Development of Colorimetric Paper-Based Analytical Device for Detection of Sucrose Adulteration in Malaysian Stingless Bee Honey

Abstract

The growing demand for honey in the market has resulted in tampering honey with foreign substances and increased production of artificial honey. There are lots of laboratory tests for honey adulteration. However, most of the tests are tedious, costly, and complicated. As a result, alternative approaches for faster and simpler detection of honey adulteration should be developed and conducted regularly. Herein, this research attempts to develop paper-based analytical devices (PADs) as a simple, rapid, and inexpensive method for simultaneously detecting sucrose adulteration in stingless bee honey. To develop the PADs, colorimetric paper-based analytical devices (C-PADs) technology was approached. The C-PADs only used a small amount of sample solution (8 microL) for sucrose analyses. Furthermore, no interfering compound was obtained for C-PADs. The storage stability was further investigated, and after 30 days, the stability decreased by 40 percent from its initial value. Finally, the sucrose content of eight stingless bee honey samples was measured using the C-PADs and compared with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results for C-PADs corroborated well with HPLC as most of the results are not significantly different at the 95 percent confidence level. Among the eight samples, commercial samples H4, H5, and H8 were positive for honey adulteration. From this research, it can be concluded that the C-PADs have been successfully developed to determine sucrose adulteration in stingless bee honey.