Dielectric properties of honey adulterated by sugar syrup

Abstract

Abstract Dielectric properties of pure honey adulterated by varying amount of sugar syrup have been measured over 20 Hz to 2 MHz frequency range, at room temperature. The samples were prepared by mixing different proportions of sugar syrup in pure honey. It has been observed that, dielectric constant (ε′) and dielectric loss (ε″) of the mixture increases as percentage of sugar-syrup in honey increases. ε′ of the mixture decreases rapidly with the increase in frequency and achieves static value at higher frequency. ε″ decreases linearly with increase in frequency. The relaxation time corresponding to tanδ peak varies nonlinearly with increase in concentration of sugar syrup in the honey. The dielectric loss at 2 MHz, and the relaxation frequency of the mixture increases linearly with increase in concentration of sugar syrup in honey, which can be used to estimate the amount of adulteration of honey by sugar syrup.