Linear Regression Relationship between Lychee Juice Content and Buffering Capacity

Abstract

Juice drinks are an important commercialization alternative for lychee, a tropical and subtropical fruit. Although the lychee juice content is important when assessing the quality of a drink, there are no published methods to determine it, particularly simple ones for the routine inspection of juice drinks. Lychee juice drinks contain ingredients with buffering capacity including proteins and ions such as phosphate, citrate, lactate, carbonate, acetate and propionate. The relationship between their buffering capacity and lychee juice content was studied. Citric acid was added to pure lychee dilutions in distilled water containing 100%, 90%, 80%, 70%, 60%, 50%, 40%, 30%, 20% and 10% lychee juice. The pH of the dilutions was measured to obtain a linear model for the molar H+ concentration as a function of the added citric acid (g/L) amount LC = (BC-494.2)/12,031, where LC was the lychee juice content and BC was defined as the juice buffering coefficient.