Development of a simple analytical low-cost procedure for the determination of sugar moisture content

• Grant number: 18/11764-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2018
• End date: November 30, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Food Science and Technology - Food Science
• Principal Investigator: Wanessa Melchert Mattos
• Grantee: Weslley de Alcântara Carlos
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Brazil is currently the largest producer and exporter of sugar in the world, and is among one of the largest consumers. The increasing demands of buyers, both domestic and international, are beginning to intensify the search for better quality products, which raises the standardization of products. Given the high degree of purity of the product, most of the derogatory processes occur in the storage stage, and are mainly due to the reactions (dehydration, polymerization and fragmentation) that the sucrose molecules may suffer upon contact with water. In this sense, simple, rapid, reliable and reproducible analysis procedures are required to determine the moisture of this product. Therefore, the present work aims at the development of a simple and low cost analytical procedure to determine the moisture content in sugar samples. In order to do so, the discoloration reaction of cobalt chloride in the presence of water will be explored and the determination of the analytical signal will be done using the principle of reflectance, through the analysis of images. The system adopted will be the RGB and the collection of the images will be realized from a smartphone camera, using controlled lighting. The treatment of the images will be done from a free application of smartphone.