Application of FTIR spectroscopy for analysis of the quality of honey

Abstract

Every kind of honey is a very precious natural product which is made by Mellifera bees species. The chemical composition of honey depends on its origin or mode of production. Honey consists essentially of different sugars, predominantly fructose and glucose. There are also non – sugar ingredients like proteins and amino acids, as well as some kind of enzymes, such as: invertase, amylase, glucose oxidase, catalase and phosphatase. The fact that honey is one of the oldest medicine known worldwide is remarkable. Scientists all over the world have been trying to improve analytical methods as well as to implement new ones in order to reaffirm the high quality of honey the benefits of which may be distracted or disturbed. There are many methods and popular analytical techniques, including as follows: mass spectroscopy and molecular spectroscopy (especially FTIR spectroscopy). The infrared spectroscopy technique is one of the most common analytical methods which are used to analyse honey nowadays. The main aim of the task was to use ATR-FTIR infrared spectroscopy to compare selected honey samples as well as typical sequences coming out from certain functional groups in the analysed samples.