Detection of honey adulteration by high fructose corn syrup and maltose syrup using Raman spectroscopy

Raman spectroscopy was used to detect adulterants such as high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and maltose syrup (MS) in honey. HFCS and MS were each mixed with authentic honey samples in the following ratios: 1:10 (10%), 1:5 (20%) and 1:2.5 (40%, w/w). Adaptive iteratively reweighted penalized least squares (airPLS) was chosen to remove background of spectral data. Partial least squares-linear discriminant analysis (PLS-LDA) was used to develop a binary classification model. Classification of honey authenticity using PLS-LDA showed a total accuracy of 91.1% (authentic honey vs. adulterated honey with HFCS), 97.8% (authentic honey vs. adulterated honey with MS) and 75.6% (authentic honey vs. adulterated honey with HFCS and MS), respectively. Classification of honey adulterants (e.g. HFCS or MS) using PLS-LDA gave a total accuracy of 84.4%. The results showed that Raman spectroscopy combined with PLS-LDA was a potential technique for detecting adulterants in honey.

► Honey authenticity studied by Raman spectroscopy + PLS-LDA, good results obtained.
► Honey can be adulterated with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and maltose syrup (MS).
► Method applied to discriminate between authentic honey and adulterated honey.
► Raman spectroscopy can potentially detect adulterants like HFCS and MS in honey.
► Honey adulterant (HFCS or MS) classification with PLS-LDA had total accuracy of 84.4%.