I-Corps: Determination of syrup adulterants and geographical and floral origin of honey using chemometrics

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是在蜂蜜掺假检测领域。蜂蜜掺假是在蜂蜜中故意添加玉米、甘蔗、甜菜和大米糖浆等掺杂物的过程，可能会产生重大的经济和感官后果。拟议的技术将允许蜂蜜进口商、包装商和零售商，以及食品认证机构，通过以便捷的方式对上述掺假糖浆进行量化，在供应链的每一步快速追踪其蜂蜜产品的真伪。这将显著提高产品的真实性和可追溯性。此外，现场检测蜂蜜是否存在掺假以及花卉和地理指纹将使不同的蜂蜜市场细分市场能够在全球市场上为其纯蜂蜜产品要求适当的价格。随着全球食品欺诈的持续升级，到2023年，食品真实性市场预计将增长到83亿美元(美元)。掺假蜂蜜占食品欺诈案的7%，到2023年将造成5.81亿美元的市场规模中断。这个i-Corps项目基于便携式中红外光谱设备和智能手机应用系统的开发，可以在不到2分钟的时间内同时量化各种糖浆(即玉米、甘蔗、甜菜和大米)以及蜂蜜中的糖含量(即葡萄糖、果糖和蔗糖)。目前检测蜂蜜中这些掺杂物的方法被认为是昂贵、耗时、陈旧和繁琐的。其中大多数测试是通过第三方实验室使用昂贵而复杂的分析设备进行的。智能手机应用系统将包含研究小组专有开发的多变量校准系统，该系统可以使用中红外光谱分析设备，以方便、经济的方式同时量化蜂蜜中上述掺杂物的存在。此外，多元校准算法系统还将包括与确定蜂蜜的花卉和地理来源相关的方面。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is in the area of honey adulteration detection. Honey adulteration which is the process of deliberately adding adulterants such as corn, cane, beet, and rice syrups in honey can have significant economic and organoleptic consequences. The proposed technology will allow honey importers, packers, and retailers, as well as food authentication agencies to quickly track the authenticity of their honey products at each step of the supply chain by quantifying the abovementioned adulterant syrups in a facile and convenient manner. This will significantly improve the product’s authenticity and traceability. Further, in situ testing for the presence of honey adulterants as well as floral and geographic fingerprinting will allow various honey market segments to demand the appropriate price for their pure honey products in the global market. With food fraud continuing to escalate globally, the food authenticity market is expected to grow to $8.3 billion (USD) by 2023. Adulterated honey constitutes 7% of food fraud cases, amounting to $581 million (USD) by 2023 in total market size disruption.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a portable mid-infrared spectrometric device and a smartphone application system that can simultaneously quantify the presence of various syrups (i.e., corn, cane, beet, and rice) as well as sugar content (i.e., glucose, fructose, and sucrose) in honey in less than 2 minutes. Current methods for detecting these adulterants in honey are considered expensive, time consuming, archaic, and cumbersome. Most of these tests are being conducted via third-party laboratories using expensive and complex analytical equipment. The smartphone application system will contain the research group’s proprietary developed multivariate calibration system that can simultaneously quantify the presence of the aforementioned adulterants in honey in a facile, convenient, and affordable manner using the mid-infrared spectrometric device. Further, the multivariate calibration algorithmic system will also feature aspects related to determining the floral and geographical origin of honey.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.