Towards creating a synthetic honey

Martin, Jonathan; Garbes, Gabriel

Student Work

Towards creating a synthetic honey

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Honey is a very popular product all around the world. It is a sweet and sugary solution that improves the taste of tea and most desserts. It also has a variety of health benefits such as anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties that improve the lives of people all over the world. Honey is mainly produced by a variety of species of bees, many of which have been domesticated in some form. This domestication has reduced the population of bees in the wild due to inferior genetic fitness. Thus, the purpose of our project and this report was to determine a new and simple way to synthesize honey. This was done by making synthetic nectar at a temperature of 60oC and adding the enzymes invertase, glucose oxidase, and catalase. The mixture was then left to boil at 220oC until a final volume below 70 mL was left. From there, the mixture was analyzed for its water content, pH, sugar content, and viscosity. First, as the amount of glucose oxidase increased, the water content in the honey decreased from 21% at its highest to 12.5% at its lowest. Conversely, as more glucose oxidase was added, the amount of glucose, the viscosity, and the pH of the honey all increased. These results demonstrate that honey can be made synthetically from sugars, and that glucose oxidase plays a distinct role in the changes in the properties of honey. Finally, it is recommended that future projects employ a taste test of the samples with store-bought honey to determine if taste changes with increased glucose oxidase concentration.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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