Determination and Degradation of Potassium Bromate Content in Dough and Bread Samples Due to the Presence of Metals

Abstract

Potassium bromate (PB) is used in bread making as an agent of maturation; however, it is classified as a potential carcinogen. In the present study, a rapid, simple, precise and accurate testing method has been developed to determine the level of bromate ions in bread, which is based on a reaction of bromate ions with iodide ions in acidic medium to produce iodine (I 2 ). The absorbance of iodine (I 2 ) was measured at 352 nm, and bromate ions reacted with iodide during the first 3 minutes after initiation of the reaction. The proposed method has been successfully applied to the determination of bromate ions in commercial bread. In this work, we found that bromate ions alone degraded at about 400°C, however, during bread making they degraded at 150°C - 200°C, this mightbe due to the presence of metals [Fe, Mg, Zn, Mn, Cu and Al] in flour which served as catalysts. In this study we found that the use of two grams (2 g) of PB per bag flour (60 kg) was safe.