Quantitative estimation of soda ash as an adulterant in aqueous sucrose solution by employing electrical impedance and capacitance spectroscopy

Abstract

This study analyses measured values of impedance, capacitance and conductance for pure sucrose-DI water solution and when adulterated with different wt% of soda ash (Na2CO3). For pure sucrose-DI water solution, these electrical parameters vary in a quasi-oscillatory nature with increasing sucrose concentration; however, it varies linearly for adulterant wt% ≥ 1%. For pure sucrose-DI water solution, impedance values, in our test setup, are observed to be ranging from 141.53 kΩ to 230 kΩ whereas capacitance and conductance values range from 40.53 pF to 43.91 pF and 4.14 µS to 6.73 µS, respectively, for different sucrose volume fractions. However, under adulterated conditions (upto 5%) such values change from 157.15 kΩ to 107 Ω for impedance, 42.5 pF to 72 µF for capacitance and 6.06 µS to 8.9 mS for conductance, respectively. Coefficient of sensitivity has been extracted which indicates that the system can detect a minimum of 1% Na2CO3 in aqueous sucrose solution.