ABSTRACT
This study was aimed to establish a rapid discrimination method of Pinellia ternataand its adulterants based on the odour fingerprints analysis.Typhonium flagelliforme and Arisaema Rhizome,which were the common adulterants of Pinellia ternata,were collected.The adulterants were mixed with Pinellia ternatain different proportions.E-nose technology was used to obtain the odour fingerprints of Pinellia ternataand its adulterants of different types and proportions.Chemometrics methods,such as the analysis of variance (ANOVA),principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant factor analysis (DFA) were used in the analysis and discrimination on sensors response data collected by sensors.The results showed that there were obvious differences on the odour characteristics between Pinellia ternateand its adulterants.PCA can obviously discriminate Pinellia ternateand its adulterants.And the odour difference became obvious along with the increasing of the adulteration proportion.There was a linear relationship between e-nose signal and the proportion of Typhonium flagelliforme.The cumulative proportion in ANOVA of the DFA model was 100%.The correct recognition rate was not less than 97%.It was concluded that e-nose can be used for rapid discrimination of Pinellia ternataand its adulterants.This study provided new technology and method for the discrimination of adulterants of Chinese materia medica.