ABSTRACT
Polarimetric HPLC detector was used to acquire chromatograms for lavender/lavandin essentials oils (EOs) on different chiral stationary phases. Amylose tris-(3,5-dichloro-phenylcarbamate) immobilized on silica allowed the best separation of the numerous chiral phytomarkers and was thus used to obtain a chiroptical fingerprint for 158 samples of French lavender/lavandin EOs. Samples from different varieties (Abrial, Fine, Grosso, Maillette, Matherone, Sumian and Super) were collected over three crop years (2012, 2013 and 2014), from four different locations in France (``Alpes-de-Haute-Provence'', ``Ardèche'', ``Drôme'' and ``Vaucluse'') to take into account seasonal and geographic origin variations. The combination of the polarimetric fingerprints and chemometrics was tested for varietal discrimination. We assessed the ability to discriminate the EOs samples and their variety by partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). This case study showed that liquid chromatography with polarimetric detector in tandem with chemometric analysis was efficient to differentiate the varietal origins of French lavender/lavandin EOs.
