A Rapid 13C/12C Test for Determination of Corn Syrups in Honey

Abstract

Abstract The AOAC official method for detection of corn syrup products in honey measures the 13C/12C ratio (δ13C) (978.17). In the official method, a suspect honey is combusted off-line to C02 gas for analysis on a dual-inlet isotope ratio mass spectrometer (IRMS). The procedure is manual, requires liquid N2, and takes 20-50 min/sample. In the present study, we examine a recently developed alternative, automated 15N 13C analysis mass spectrometry (ANCA-MS). This procedure combusts and analyzes 66 samples in a batch and takes only 5 min/sample. We used both ANCA-MS and IRMS with offline combustion to analyze 6 honeys containing from 0 to 100% high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). δ13C values by both methods agreed within 0.2%o and gave an excellent straight line fit (slope = 0.991; R = 1). As an alternative to IRMS, ANCA-MS is automated and provides a 5-fold increase in sample throughput.