Estimation of menthol in Pan Masala samples by a spectrophotometric method

摘要

Recentloy, the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act of India has fixed the level of menthol addition to Pan Masala at 0.1/100, therefore good manufacturing prac- Tice (GMP) should be adopted so that the samples do Not exceed 0.1/100 menthol (1 mg/g). The estimation of Menthol in Pan Masala samples involves steam distilla- Tion followed by reaction with p-dimetyhyl amino ben- Zaldehyde (DMAB) in acidic medium to give a red Colour which is read at 550 nm. The sensitivity of this Procedure is 75 μg menthol per g sample. Using this Method, 130 branded and 53 non-branded samples of Pan Masala were analysed for menthol content.