Application of instrumental analysis methods in detecting alcoholic beverages falsification

The analysis of alcoholic beverages is one of the most relevant and demanded types of chemical expertise in connection with frequent facts of these products' falsification. The improvement of the approaches to the analysis of alcoholic beverages is aimed at solving two problems: the first is to establish safety, i.e. the identification and determination of the content of harmful impurities, the second - recognition of the variety, counterfeit, defective and falsified products. The most complete information about the quality and origin of alcoholic beverages one can obtain by the combination of modern instrumental analysis methods. The study analyzes the samples of vodkas purchased in the Krasnoyarsk retail network, the samples of unregistered alcoholic products of handicraft production (moonshine) and the samples of counterfeit products using ion chromatography, fluorescence, UV spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. As a result of the analysis, the anionic composition of the samples has been determined, the total content of the main anions in the samples under study was determined, and their molecular spectra have been studied. A portable single-column ion chromatograph PIA-1000 is used to determine the anions. It has been experimentally established that a onecolumn version of ion chromatography without suppressing the background signal allows the determination of chloride, sulfate and nitrate ions in alcoholic beverages at the sensitivity level required by regulatory documents. It has been established that the spectra of handicraft and falsified alcoholic beverages are fundamentally different from the spectra of legally produced alcoholic beverages. To determine the counterfeit at the stage of screening samples of alcoholic beverages, it is proposed to use the following parameters: increased content of nitrate ions; maximum absorption in the UV spectrum in the range of 270-290 nm; intense maximum at a wavelength of 420-450 nm in the luminescence spectrum; the presence of peaks in the range 1200-1300 cm-1 in the Raman spectra.