Determination of trace amounts with ATR FTIR spectroscopy and chemometrics: 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural in honey.

The feasibility of Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR FTIR) spectroscopy and chemometric modeling for analysis of trace compounds is studied on the example of 5-(hydroxymethyl)furfural (HMF) in honey up to a concentration of 110 ppm, and compared to results in literature. Randomized repeated measurements of the calibration samples were carried out to prevent analytical artifacts. A partial least squares (PLS) model was calculated for quantitative determination.