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Abstract

Dates are one of the most important food commodities in the Middle East countries, including the Sultanate of Oman. The fruit is regarded as a highly nutritious and healthy food. However, there are two million tons per year of dates that are abandoned waste worldwide. The objective was to establish an optimized method to separate sugars from dates using chromatographic resins and know the effect of those resins on the other ingredients. Fard date and three strong-cation gel-type resins (DOW-Ca, PCR-Ca and PCR-Na) were used in this study. The free-sugar extracts were analyzed by HPLC-MS method to quantify sugars and polyphenols. Most of the sugars were adsorbed by all of the tested resins with a higher selectivity towards fructose compared to glucose and sucrose. DOW-Ca had the lowest sugar adsorption compared to the others. Minerals profile by ICP detected a sharp reduction in potassium content, which was the main mineral found in Fard dates. Polyphenols content showed drastic decrease after treatment. Overall, the project succeeded in defining a method to remove sugar from dates and extend the loss of minerals and polyphenols in the process. For future work, it is recommended to evaluate the efficiency of other chromatographic resins in sugar separation.

Article Details

Author Biography

Ahmed Al-Alawi, Food Science and Nutrition department, Sultan Qaboos University

HoD Food Science and Nutrition, CAMS, SQU
How to Cite
Al-Alawi, A., Al-Shaibi, S., & Ronald, W. (2023). Evaluation of Several Chromatographic Resins on the Separation of Dates Sugar and their Impact on other Compounds in Dates: Impact of sugar separation by chromatographic resins on other valuable ingredients in dates. Journal of Agricultural and Marine Sciences [JAMS], 28(1), 16–29. https://doi.org/10.53541/jams.vol28iss1pp16-29