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. 2024 Nov 16;13(22):3648.
doi: 10.3390/foods13223648.

Rapid Authentication of Intact Stingless Bee Honey (SBH) by Portable LED-Based Fluorescence Spectroscopy and Chemometrics

Diding Suhandy  1 , Dimas Firmanda Al Riza  2 , Meinilwita Yulia  3 , Kusumiyati Kusumiyati  4 , Mareli Telaumbanua  1 , Hirotaka Naito  5
Affiliations

Rapid Authentication of Intact Stingless Bee Honey (SBH) by Portable LED-Based Fluorescence Spectroscopy and Chemometrics

Diding Suhandy et al. Foods. .

Abstract

Indonesian stingless bee honey (SBH) of Geniotrigona thoracica is popular and traded at an expensive price. Brown rice syrup (RS) is frequently used as a cheap adulterant for an economically motivated adulteration (EMA) in SBH. In this study, authentic Indonesian Geniotrigona thoracica SBH of Acacia mangium (n = 100), adulterated SBH (n = 120), fake SBH (n = 100), and RS (n = 200) were prepared. In short, 2 mL of each sample was dropped directly into an innovative sample holder without any sample preparation including no dilution. Fluorescence intensity was acquired using a fluorescence spectrometer. This portable instrument is equipped with a 365 nm LED lamp as the fixed excitation source. Principal component analysis (PCA) was calculated for the smoothed spectral data. The results showed that the authentic SBH and non-SBH (adulterated SBH, fake SBH, and RS) samples could be well separated using the smoothed spectral data. The cumulative percentage variance of the first two PCs, 98.4749% and 98.4425%, was obtained for calibration and validation, respectively. The highest prediction accuracy was 99.5% and was obtained using principal component analysis-linear discriminant analysis (PCA-LDA). The best partial least square (PLS) calibration was obtained using the combined interval with R2cal = 0.898 and R2val = 0.874 for calibration and validation, respectively. In the prediction, the developed model could predict the adulteration level in the adulterated honey samples with an acceptable ratio of prediction to deviation (RPD) = 2.282, and range error ratio (RER) = 6.612.

Keywords: adulteration; brown rice syrup; chemometrics; honey authentication; portable fluorescence spectroscopy; stingless bee honey.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Visual information of authentic SBH, fake SBH, and brown rice syrup (RS).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Visual information of adulterated SBH with six different adulteration levels.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The front-face mode spectral acquisition system with portable LED-based fluorescence spectroscopy equipped with an innovative sample holder.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Typical fluorescence spectral data in the range of 348.5–866.5 nm with a fixed excitation at 365 nm: (a) raw spectral data; (b) smoothed spectral data.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The smoothed fluorescence spectral data of adulterated SBH with three adulteration levels (low, medium, and high adulteration) at a full spectrum of 348.5–866.5 nm.
Figure 6
Figure 6
The result of PCA score plot calculation using a full spectrum of 348.5–866.5 nm (a) based on raw spectral data; (b) based on the smoothed spectral data.
Figure 7
Figure 7
The calculated wavelength versus x-loadings for the first two PCs using a full spectrum of 348.5–866.5 nm.
Figure 8
Figure 8
The calculated Hotelling’s T2 versus Q-residual using a full spectrum of 348.5–866.5 nm.
Figure 9
Figure 9
The result of classification model development with fewer selected variables: (a) the LDA method; (b) the PCA-LDA method.
Figure 10
Figure 10
The scatter plot between actual and predicted adulteration levels in calibration and validation: (a) full-spectrum PLS model; (b) combined-interval PLS model.
Figure 11
Figure 11
The scatter plot between actual and predicted adulteration levels.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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