Validation of different analytical methods for sugar analysis used by sugar mills and distilleries in the Philippines

Date

10-2010

Degree

Bachelor of Science in Chemistry

College

College of Arts and Sciences (CAS)

Adviser/Committee Chair

Veronica P. Migo

Abstract

The amount of fermentable sugar present in a particular biomass can dictate the amount of ethanol that can be produced. The Philippines is now engaging itself to the production of bioethanol using feedstocks, which do not compete with food security, such as molasses or the by-product of sugar mills and lately, sweet sorghum being comparable to the sugar content of sugarcane. To monitor the amount of sugars in these feedstocks, methods for total sugars and reducing sugars must be harmonized. Methods were evaluated and validated to compare their sensitivity, limit of detection, limit of quantitation, precision and accuracy. Phenol-sulfuric acid method and Anthrone method, the methods for the determination of total sugars, were evaluated and it was observed that the former method is more reproducible and repeatable especially when large number of analyses is to be done. For the analysis of reducing sugars, it was observed that Nelson-Somogyi method is more precise and accurate than the DNS method. Using the Lane-Eynon Constant Volume Method, it was observed that the method is highly repeatable and reproducible, but can be tedious due to multiple and simultaneous procedures done at once. High Performance Liquid Chromatography was used as the standard method for comparison in terms of sucrose, glucose and fructose content of the sweet sorghum juice sample. Lower values were obtained as compared to the values determined colorimetrically and titrimetrically. It is recommended to use Phenol-sulfuric acid method and Nelson-Somogyi method to determine total and reducing sugars in the samples, respectively. Lane-Eynon method is a highly reproducible and repeatable method, which can also be employed with large numbers of analyses when total reducing sugars as invert (comparable to total sugars) are to be determined.

Language

English

Location

UPLB Main Library Special Collections Section (USCS)

Call Number

Thesis

Document Type

Thesis

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