Professors Win NSF Grant to Test Purity of Honey

Honey may always taste sweet, but is it always pure?

University professors intend to develop a quick, reliable and cost-effective test using a smartphone application device to determine the purity of honey in less than two minutes and they received a $50,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support this effort.

Gerard Dumancas, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry at The University of Scranton, is the principal investigator of the project and will serve as the technical lead for the research team. Riddhiman Medhi, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry at Scranton, will serve as the entrepreneurial lead. Bryan R. Crable, Ph.D., former assistant professor of biology at Scranton and current managing director of North Country Bee Works and assistant professor of microbiology at Pennsylvania Western University, will serve as industry mentor for the project.

Honey has a wide array of uses and applications in food and beverages, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. It is also the third most adulterated food product in the U.S. according to research by Honey Authenticity Network, an international effort of individuals and organizations whose fundamental interest is to prevent honey fraud.

Dr. Dumancas noted that more than 60 percent of honey in the United States is imported and can be adulterated with hard to detect adulterants with the overall intent of selling the product at a lower price.

“There is presently no U.S. federal standard for the identification of pure honey,” said Dr. Dumancas. “Current methods for honey authentication are archaic, cumbersome and time consuming, with nearly all of the tests being conducted via third-party labs in Germany using expensive analytical equipment.”

Dr. Dumancas said their project will develop an accurate test that can be completed in less than two minutes.

“The proposed technology involves a smartphone application and a spectrometric system that can test the purity of honey by simultaneously determining the quantities of multiple adulterants as well as its floral and geographical origin in a time- and cost-efficient manner,” said Dr. Dumancas, who is the chief inventor of the technology identifying the mid-infrared spectroscopic method for adulterant testing and has conducted extensive studies across various types of honey to assess its purity.

“I’m pleased that The University of Scranton will receive a $50,000 NSF award for the development of a smartphone app intended to bolster consumer confidence in the products they use,” said U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright. “As the Ranking Member of the Commerce Justice and Science Subcommittee, I will continue to do all that I can to help fund projects like this one through the National Science Foundation. Dr. Dumancas and his team are doing incredibly important work at The University of Scranton, and I look forward to the development of their latest innovative technology.”

Dr. Dumancas joined the faculty at Scranton in the spring of 2022. Over the course of his academic career, he has generated more than $2 million in external research funding from the NSF, Louisiana State University, and the Louisiana Board of Regents. He has published more than 70 research products in the form of journal articles, book chapters, books and intellectual property disclosures related to his research in the development and applications of chemometrics and spectroscopic techniques in food and biological applications. In the spring of 2023, he published a digital primer titled “Spectroscopic and Chemometric Techniques for Pharmaceutical Applications” through the American Chemical Society (ACS). The peer-reviewed and by invitation only ACS primer focuses on providing basic content about various spectroscopic and chemometric tools in pharmaceutical analyses.

Dr. Dumancas also won a research award that will allow him to work with some of the world’s leading scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, as a Visiting Faculty Fellow by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Just last year, Dr. Dumancas received a five-year, $1.158 million National Science Foundation funded Noyce Scholars grant to support future STEM high school teachers in high-need school districts. The grant provides scholarships and educational training support to 21 STEM students with a major or minor in secondary education.

Dr. Dumancas earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of the Philippines and his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Oklahoma State University.

Dr. Medhi joined the faculty at Scranton in 2022. A committed teacher and researcher, Dr. Medhi brings a broad background in applied materials chemistry. Under this NSF grant, Dr. Medhi is spearheading efforts to identify attributes of this spectroscopic invention for seamless technology transfer for industry-wide use. This invention could potentially revolutionize purity testing and tracing across the honey industry. He was previously a post-doctoral associate at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he worked to develop anti-fouling surface coatings and anti-toxin fabrics. He has applied for two U.S. patents, has authored and co-authored studies that appeared in 12 peer-reviewed publications, in addition to multiple presentations made at national conferences.

Dr. Medhi is a member of the American Chemical Society. He earned both Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in chemistry from Gauhati University in Guwahati, India, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Houston. At Houston, his research on optical nanomaterials earned him the Graduate Student Research Award, and the prestigious Dan E. Wells Outstanding Dissertation Award.

As managing director of North Country Bee Works, a family-owned apiary located in Western Pennsylvania, Dr. Crable is involved in the day-to-day operations of the business. He has extensive experience in the beekeeping and honey industry, and will guide the team in networking, understanding the supply chain, and commercial exploration of the relevant sectors.

Dr. Crable’s scientific research has been supported by the NSF, The Lake Lacawac Foundation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Air Force Research Laboratory, among others. He has authored or co-authored articles in 12 peer-reviewed publications, which, together with his collaborators, have been cited over 1,000 times. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Saint Vincent College and a master’s degree from Duquesne University. He completed a doctorate in microbiology at the University of Oklahoma. He also earned his MBA degree from The University of Scranton.