Determination of the concentrations of ethanol,
aldehydes and acetic acids in locally brewed
alcohol (Burkutu)
in some selected Local Government Areas of
Adamawa State, Nigeria
Accepted 30th
May, 2018
Maitera N. Oliver1*,
Louis Hitler2,3, Apebende C. Gloria2, Waziri M. Musa1,
Magu T. Odey2 and Amos I. Pigweh1
1Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Physical Sciences,ModibboAdama
University of Technology, Yola, Nigeria. 2Department of Pure and Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Physical
Sciences, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria. 3CAS Key Laboratory For Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, CAS
Centre For Excellence in Nanoscience, National Centre For Nanoscience and
Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, P. R. China.
The rate of consumption of
locally brewed alcohol (Burkutu) amongst
selected people of Adamawa State cannot be
overemphasized. Hence, the need to study the
chemical pollutants present in the beer is of
paramount importance. Burkutu, a locally brewed
alcohol obtained from five local government
areas of Adamawa State, namely Hong, Song, Yola
North, Numan and Ganye, was examined for the
presence and concentrations of ethanol, aldehyde
and acetic acid in the samples using UV-Vis
Spectrophotometer. The results of the analysis
showed that burkutu sample obtained in Ganye,
Numan and Song Local Government Area had the
highest content of Ethanol, Aldehydes and Acetic
acids of 58.0246, 6.3945 and 6.8829 mg/L,
respectively as compared with the burkutu sample
obtained from the rest of the other local
government studied. The presence of ethanol,
aldehyde and acetic acid in all the burkutu
samples analyzed, renders the alcoholic
beverages unhealthy for consumers because of the
toxicity of the substances determined. This
study achieved its objectives by determining the
concentration of persistent pollutants in
locally brewed alcohol.
Ethanol (C2H5OH), Aldehyde
(CHO) and Acetic acid (CH3COOH)
tend to be persistent in all the drinks which is
very toxic to the liver and human system and the
accumulation of such persistent pollutants in
the body can lead to severe health risks
including liver cirrhosis, diabetes mellitus,
cancer etc which degrades the quality of life
and eventually leads to death.
Key words:
Alcohols, aldehydes, acetic acid, Burkutu,
Nigeria.
This is an open access article
published under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.
Cite this article as:
Oliver MN, Hitler L, Apebende CG, Waziri
MM, Magu TO, Pigweh AI (2018). Determination of the concentrations of ethanol,
aldehydes and acetic acids in locally brewed alcohol (Burkutu)
in some selected Local Government Areas of Adamawa State, Nigeria. Acad. J.
Environ. Sci. 6(6): 129-135.
