The utilisation of two detectors for the determination of water in honey using headspace gas chromatography

•The HSGC method is precise and accurate for the determination of water in honey.•HSGC provides broad applicably for determination of water in treated and raw honeys.•The HSGC method was comparable to refractive index.•The sensitive BID detector was able to detect other trace volatile compounds.•The loss on drying method consistently and extensively underestimated water content.

A headspace gas chromatography (HSGC) method was developed for the determination of water content in honey. This method was shown to work with five different honey varieties which had a range of water from 14–16%. It also utilised two different detectors, the thermal conductivity detector (TCD) and the barrier discharge ionisation detector (BID). This method needs no heating pretreatment step as in the current leading method, (i.e. the measurement of refractive index). The solvent-free procedure negates the possibility of solvent–compound interactions as well as solubility limitations, as is common with Karl Fischer titrations. It was also apparent that the classic loss on drying method consistently and substantially produced results that were lower than the correct values. This approach is shown to be rapid, with an analysis time of 4 min when using the TCD detector and under 3 min when utilising the BID detector. HSGC is feasible for the determination of water due to the new PEG-linked geminal dicationic ionic-liquid-coated GC capillary column. In addition it provides accurate and precise determinations of the water content in honey. When using the sensitive BID detector, other trace volatile compounds are observed as well.