New Karl!Fischer reagents for the water determination in food

New non-toxic Karl Fischer reagents for water determination based on ethanol as solvent has been developed in the last year. To prove their suitability in the ambiguous filed of food analysis a variety of samples were analysed using conventional methanol-based reagents and the new ethanolic reagents. Since the most kind of food consists of polar substances the methanolic reagents give faster results. The non-toxic ethanol-based reagents are preferred for non-polar samples as butter. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.