A simple method for potassium bromate determination in bread

Abstract

Bread the major food of most the world population, is usually made from flour in addition to other materials to promote its various properties .potassium bromate is one of these materials, addition of potassium bromate to promote properties of bread such as appearance, texture, shape and size, there is a lot of controversy about its health hazard such as kidney failure, hearing loss, respiratory difficulty and causing different cancer . There aremany analytical methods for determination of potassium bromate but they are complicated, expensive and time consuming. The objective of this research is to develope, simple, easy,and cheap and simple method for determination of potassium bromate in bread. We took Greater Khartoum as an example (Khartoum, Khartoum-North and Omdurman) collecting a total of twenty seven (27) samples, eighteen (18) from the machinery bakeries and nine (9) from manual bakeries. Qualitative analysis was carried out using the following reagent: silver nitrate, crystal violet and sulfanillic acid in addition to Thin-Layer chromatography . Quantitative analysis was carried out using UV-Vis spectrophotometry with crystal violet and sulfanillic acid, and inductively coupled plasma techniques. The resultsobtained were as follows: the mean of concentration (ppm) for machinery bread by using sulfanillic acid reagent for Khartoum (9.6), Khartoum-North (8.6) and Omdurman (7.4), but the mean concentration of manual bread for Khartoum (0.6), Khartoum-North (0.5) and Omdurman (0.5). And by using crystal violet reagent (machinery bread) for Khartoum (13.0), Khartoum-North (11.9)and Omdurman (10.7) but the mean concentration of manual bread for Khartoum (0.7), Khartoum-North (0.566) and Omdurman (0.5).by using inductively coupled plasma instrument in machinery bread for Khartoum (84.0), Khartoum-North (73.5)and Omdurman (57.9) but the manual bread for Khartoum (0.00),Khartoum-North (0.00)and Omdurman(0.2). From the promising qualitative test with sulphanillic acid we were able to introduce and promote the reagent for quantitative work. The reagent proved to be highly stable, sensitive and cheap. It is the first time for this reagent to be used for quantitative determination of bromate in baked materials. Further study’s could be carried to increase it is sensitivity and selectivity.