Quantification of Sugars in Soft Drinks and Fruit Juices by Density, Refractometry, Infrared Spectroscopy and Statistical Methods

The amount of sugar in soft drinks and fruit juices has been quantified by density, refractometric and infrared spectroscopic methods. Density and refractometric methods can be used to obtain only the total amount of sugar. However, infrared spectroscopy distinguishes itself as a fast and reliable method for quantitative analysis. Fourier-transformedspectroscopy in combination with a mathematical treatment of the spectra of samples allows the amount of different sugars such as glucose, fructose and sucrose to be determined. Keywords: Sugar, Density, Refractrometry, Mid-FTIR, Partial least squares South African Journal of Chemistry Vol.57 2004: 24-2