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B. Brown Sugar
Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses resulted from caramelization of sucrose. It
is made up of sucrose with greater amounts of ash, invert sugar and compounds derived from the process that give the sugar its characteristic
flavor and color. Brown sugar is used in several confections such as caramels, toffees and butterscotch Potter Hotchkiss 1995. In Asia,
Africa and South America non-centrifugal sugars are made for direct consumption and are known by a range of names: Kokuto in Japan, Gur in
India and Bangladesh, Desi in Pakistan, Jaggery in Africa, and Panela in South America.
There are two categories of brown sugar: those produced directly from the cane juice at the place of origin and those that are produced during
the refining of raw sugar. The first type includes a variety of molasses and syrups. The second type is coated brown or soft sugars and a variety of
refinery molasses and golden syrups. The brown sugar types can be further divided into those where the crystals are separated centrifuged and
those that are not separated non-centrifuged from the molasses. Brown sugar is known to contain antioxidant compounds that have
radical-scavenging activity and related functions such as anticancer effects and regulation of blood pressure. Takara et al. 2002, 2003 reported that
Kokuto , Okinawan brown sugar Figure 1 have antioxidative phenolic
glycosides. They are expected to be effective in the prevention of many diseases and morbid states. More recently, Payet et al. 2005 investigated
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polyphenol content and volatile composition in seven cane brown sugars four from La Réunion, two from Mauritius and one from France, and the
relation to their unique free radical scavenging capacity.
Figure 1 Kokuto, Okinawan brown sugar.
C. Plant Wax
The term wax is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word weax which was used to describe the material in the honeycomb of bees. Wax generally
refers to all waxlike solids and liquids found in nature and to those individual organic substances that crystallize on cooling and melt on heating.
The nature of lipid constituents can vary greatly with the source of the waxy material, such as hydrocarbons, sterol esters, aliphatic aldehydes, primary
and secondary alcohols, wax esters, diols, ketones, β-diketones,
triacylglycerols, and so on Dominguez Heredia 1998. The surfaces of plants are covered by several layers of lipophilic
material, the outermost being the epicuticular waxes. They provide the
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hydrophobic barrier of the plant surface, and as such they function primarily to shed water and prevent nonstomatal water loss Koch et al. 2006. In
addition, they provide a first line of defense against bacterial and fungal pathogens and against abiotic stresses such as drought and UV damage
Reisige et al. 2006. Epicuticular waxes also play a role in plant-insect communication, by either attracting or deterring insects. This superficial
material is synthesized by specialized cells in the outermost layers of the plant tissue. The amount of plant cuticular waxes produced is dependent on
growth conditions, whilst chemical composition is less influenced by environmental factors. In general, wax yield from leaves and fruits of
many species is ranging between 20 and 600 µ gcm
2
Sugarcane wax is the whitish to dark yellowish powdery deposit on the surface of the stalks of Saccharum officinarum L. During the milling of the
cane, a large portion of this powdery substance is detached and mixed with the expressed juice. Sugarcane wax has been chemically defined as a
complex and variable mixture of long-chain alkanes, hydrocarbons, fatty acids, ketones, aldehydes, alcohols, and esters Nuissier et al. 2002; Purcell
et al. 2005, and steroids such as
β-sitosterol, stigmasterol, ketosteroids and hydroxyketosteroids Goerges et al. 2006.
Dominguez Heredia 1998.
All compounds of plant wax have their own unique roles. However, only few researches have been investigated wax components functions in
plant and their metabolism to date. Rutherford and Staden 1996 reported a correlation of high ratio of alcohol to aldehyde and shorter carbon chain
length of sugarcane wax with stalk resistance to sugarcane borer Eldana
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saccharina Walker. Morris et al. 2000 described 1-octacosanal
C28-aldehyde as the major component of wheat epicuticular wax that stimulates oviposition of the Hessian fly, Mayetiola destructor.
Comparison of the activity of five straight-chain primary aldehydes with chain lengths from C22 to C30 revealed a relationship between chain length
and the number of eggs laid by female Hessian flies, with 1-hexacosanal and 1-heptacosanal the most active of the aldehydes tested.
Wax is valuable source for many industries such as cosmetic, food ingredient, lubricant, printing and many other applications. Wax esters,
oxo esters of long-chain fatty acids esterified with long-chain alcohols, can be used as high pressure lubricants, as replacements for hydraulic oil, and in
the pharmaceuticals, leather, and food industries, as well as in candles and polishes. Long chain alkanals are known as favorable cosurfactants of
liquids containing charged micelles Meziani et al. 1997. Lately, long chain aliphatic alcohols of sugarcane wax have been used as
cholesterol-lowering products Taylor et al. 2000; Castano et al. 2003.
D. Wax Compositional Analysis
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