Detection and determination of the levels of physiologically active substances in non-alcoholic beverages

Non-alcoholic drinks such as energy drinks, ginger ale, and tonic water drinks are immensely popular nowadays. The most common ingredients of these drinks are caffeine and artificial sweeteners. This experimental study was aimed to inspect and determine the levels of ingredients present in these drinks. As these drinks claim to be safe, they are also highly prone to adulteration and mislabelling. Eight samples of these drinks were collected randomly, all belonging to different brands. They were subjected to chromatographic analysis; the HPLC method was utilized with UV as a detector to determine the content levels of sugar, caffeine, and artificial sweetener such as aspartame, acesulfame potassium & saccharine. These samples were evaluated and the results were observed and noted consequently. In 3 samples, the caffeine content was observed to be over the limit, and in 2 samples of aspartame, the content was found to be over the limit. The main purpose of this work was to detect the variation in the amount of the ingredients present in popular drinks and how its a prevalent public health issue.