Quantification of total sugars and reducing sugars of dragon fruit-derived sugar-samples by UV-Vis spectrophotometric method

Abstract In the present work, the phenol-sulfuric acid method and the 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) method were developed with the aim to quantitatively analyze total sugars and reducing sugars, respectively. In regard with the phenol-sulfuric acid assay, 1.0 mL of sample was treated with 1.0 mL of 5% phenol, 5.0 mL of concentrated H 2 SO 4 and measured at 485 nm, with the linearity range of 10–100 ppm for total sugars. The DNS method was performed on 2.0 mL of sample, using 1.5 mL of DNS at 80 °C for 10 minutes and measured at 510 nm, with the linearity range of 50–400 ppm for reducing sugars. The sugar contents of white dragon fruit-derived sugar-samples (extracted from species in Binh Thuan province, Vietnam) were also estimated by the above measured methods, exhibiting the total sugars of above 90% and the reducing sugars of above 5%. The methods were well-performed with the acceptable relative standard deviations of repeatability in accordance with the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC).