Rapid discrimination of Chinese red ginseng and Korean ginseng using an electronic nose coupled with chemometrics.

Red ginseng is a precious and widely used traditional Chinese medicine. At present, Chinese red ginseng and Korean ginseng are both commonly found on the market. To rapidly and nondestructively discriminate between Chinese red ginseng and Korean ginseng, an electronic nose coupled with chemometrics was developed. Different red ginseng samples, including Chinese red ginseng (n=30) and Korean ginseng (South Korean red ginseng and North Korean red ginseng n=26), were collected. The metal oxide sensors on an electronic nose were used to measure the red ginseng samples. Multivariate statistical analyses, including principal component analysis (PCA), discriminant factorial analysis (DFA) and soft independent modeling of class analogy (SIMCA), were employed. All of the samples were analyzed by PCA. Most of the samples were used to set up DFA and SIMCA models, and then the remaining samples (Nos. 9, 10, 17, 18, 29, 30, 34, 43, 44, 50, and 51) were projected onto the DFA and SIMCA models in the form of black dots to validate the models. The results indicated that Chinese red ginseng and Korean ginseng were successfully discriminated using the electronic nose coupled with PCA, DFA and SIMCA. The checking scores of the DFA and SIMCA models were 100. The samples projected onto the DFA and SIMCA models were all correctly discriminated. The DFA and SIMCA models were robust. Electronic nose technology is a rapid, accurate, sensitive and nondestructive method to discriminate between Chinese red ginseng and Korean ginseng.