Analysis of Fake Honey and Sildenafil Adulterated Honey

Abstract

Recently, there has been a report in local newspaper for fake and adulterated honey. Fake honey was prepared using sucrose while adulterated with sildenafil for the pleasure that it brings. In this study, local honey was used and analyzed for sucrose while for comparison laboratory prepared sucrose was also analyzed. Since adulterated honey with sildenafil was not obtained, laboratory simulation or doped was prepared. Characterization of fake honey and adulterated was carried using Fourier Transform Infrared Attenuated Total Reflectance (FTIR-ATR) Spectroscopy and Ultra Violet-Visible (UV-Vis) Spectroscopy respectively. Qualitative analysis of honey, sildenafil and sucrose using FTIR-ATR showed a huge difference between honey and sildenafil, however there is no difference between honey and sucrose. So, the honey sample was suspected to contain sucrose and this is also supported by the analysis using UV-Vis that showed the peak at 280 nm to represent sucrose. The analysis of sildenafil using UV-Vis spectroscopy at 306 nm illustrated a good result with calibration curve linear up to 0.9975. The percentage of error and percentage of recovery are 1.7 % and 94.5 % respectively. The analysis of sucrose at 280 nm gave the regression line up to 0.9320 and the percentage of error and percentage of recovery are 2.7 % and 94.5 % respectively. From the UV analysis, the honey sample was identified positive to contain 23 ± 1 µg/mL of sucrose meanwhile negative for sildenafil.