Monday, March 21, 2011

Water Content of Brazilian Bee-Collected Pollen Measured

Determination of Water Content in Brazilian Honeybee-Collected Pollen by Karl Fischer Titration
Food Control, Article in Press

This paper assesses the performance of a chemical method based on the Karl Fischer titration to determine the water content in samples of dehydrated honeybee-collected pollen.

The following analysis parameters were investigated: extraction temperature, particle size, reaction time, and weight of a dried pollen sample. After optimization, the method was used to determine the water content of 154 samples of dried honeybee-collected pollen from different geographical regions of Brazil. The Karl Fischer titration method, performed using a solvent mixture of methanol and n-octanol (1:1 v/v) at 50 °C on pollen particles 600 μm in size produced the best results.

Mean values for water content of the 154 samples of dried honeybee-collected pollen from 12 Brazilian regions ranged from 3 % to 9 %.

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