Spectroscopic method to determine reducing-sugars applying a green inorganic glassy material to boost the color reaction

The development of new materials to advance improved methods to quantify selected molecules in complex matrices is always a scientific challenge. Finding greener, simpler, and lower-cost techniques are the main targets. Inorganic compounds make it possible to meet these requirements. In this work, a spectroscopic method has been designed for the determination of reducing sugars using an inorganic glassy material based on boron and molybdenum oxides to boost the color reaction. The new material has been characterized by XRD, FTIR, zeta potential, and SEM. The color reaction proposed has been improved by applying microwaves and its functionality has been optimized with carbohydrate solutions and assessed on honey samples from the region. The novel inorganic material triggers the reduction of molybdenum cation by reducing sugar in an aqueous media to result in a colored molybdenum-gluconate complex. Such complex is then quantified by UV-vis spectroscopy. The effectiveness of this novel method is validated by contrasting to the conventional Fehling-Causse-Bonnans method resulting on a relative error lower than 3 %.