| Appearance | White crystalline powder |
| Solubility | Freely soluble in water, sparingly soluble in ethanol (95 per cent) |
| Identification ‘A’ | When heated it melts, swells up and burns and an odour of burnt sugar is perceptible |
| Identification ‘B’ | A copious red precipitate is formed with potassium cupri tartrate solution |
| Appearance and odour of solution | Solution is clear not more intensly coloured than refrence solution BYS7 and odourless |
| Acidity or alkalinity | NMT 0.15 ml of 0.1M NaOH is required to change the colur of solution to pink |
| Specific optical rotation | +52.5° to +53.3° |
| Arsenic (As) | Max 0.0001% |
| Heavy metal | Max 0.0005% |
| Chloride (Cl) | Max 0.0125% |
| Loss on drying (1 g, 105°C, 16h) | Max 0.5 % |
| Sulphite | To pass IP test |
| Barium (Ba) | To pass IP test |
| Foreign sugars, soluble starch and dextrins | To pass IP test |
| Sulphated ash | Max 0.1% |
| Water (H2O) | Max 0.1 % |
| Bacterial endotoxin | Not more than 0.5 Endotoxin unit/ ml of a 5 % w/v solution |