Kolasani, Archana, Xu, Hong and Millikan, Mary (2010) Analysis of metals in plant parts of selected Chinese herbs by near infrared spectroscopy. Fresenius Environmental Bulletin, 19 (2). pp. 131-136. ISSN 1018-4619

Abstract

Some of the medicinal herbal products may not be required to demonstrate efficacy, safety or quality. Little is known about the relative safety of medicinal herbs compared to synthetic drug treatments, although, for some medicinal herbs the risk may be less than conventional drugs. The toxic effects may show due to heavy metal poisoning. Measurement of metal content in the herbs by standard conventional wet chemical methods usually re-quires numerous reagents, skilled labor and expensive analytical equipment. The objective of this study, therefore, is to study the ability of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to determine the concentrations of lead and zinc in Chinese herbs. The reference values for the Chinese herbs were ob-tained by atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). The samples were scanned using a FOSS-NIRSystem (Model 6500) Spectrophotometer from 400-2500 nm. Partial least squares (PLS) and multiple linear regression (MLR) statistics were applied to analyze the data. Coefficient of determination (R2) and Standard error of calibration (SEC) from MLR were Zn (0.74, 0.08), Pb (0.92, 0.04) and from PLS for Zn (0.63, 0.10), Pb (0.90, 0.05), respectively. This preliminary study showed that NIRS is a feasible analytical method for prediction of metal content in various parts of Chinese herbal plants.

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