Quantitative Determination of Sugar Levels in Natural Plants of Cactus Pear (Opuntia ficus indica) and Votre-Coach Alimantaire Cultivated in Adigrat, North of Ethiopia

Copyright © 2014 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT: In this work, a quantitative study for sugar concentration determination was conducted using Uv-Visible Spectroscopy. Glucose and Sucrose of three extracted plants fruit were analysis by refractometer and thin layer Chromatography before applied for quantitative determination. The TSS values recorded have a good agreement with the Sucrose standard and previously analyzed sugar in fruit and vegetables. TSS of Coach-fruit, Cactus Opuntia and Peel is 18Bix%, 18Brix % and 21Brix % respectively. These results have a good precision with the TSS sugar found in Apple species (18.83Brix %), Potato species (19.10%) and Grape (17.50Brix %) fruit-vegetables.The single spot observed on TLC, assay the purity of sample. Calibration models for Glucose and Sucrose determination were developed using the standard solution. Sugar concentrations were determined from single standard and calibration curve. The mean concentrations of Sucrose and Glucose in Coach-fruit, Cactus pear and Cactus peel, were 143.035mg/ml, 42.420mg/ml, and 0.943mg/ml for Sucrose; and 86.912mg/ml, 18.938mg/ml and 8.810mg/ml for Glucose determined