Elemental and isotopic characterization of cane and beet sugars

An interlaboratory program designed to assess the feasibility of using multi-element and isotopic measurements for determining the geographic origin of sugars permitted an intercomparison of the performance (in terms of limits of detection, reproducibility and bias) of various analytical techniques: inductively coupled plasma (ICP)-optical emission spectrometry (OES); different variations of ICP-mass spectrometry (MS): quadrupole (QMS), sector-field (SFMS) and multi-collector (MC-ICP-MS); thermal ionization MS (TIMS); and isotope ratio MS (IRMS). These various methods were applied to cane (raw and refined) and beet (refined) sugars from different origins. Concentrations of 63 elements and isotope ratios of Pb, Sr and C in sugar samples are reported. Determining the geographic origin of sugars appears feasible using elemental fingerprinting.