Identification of Rheum officinale by near infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy

Key words: 
• Rheum officinale Baill /
• near infrared spectroscopy /
• identification

Abstract: Objective To establish a near infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopic (NIRDRS) method for the identification of Rheum officinale Baill from different production area.Method The near infrared spectra of Rheum officinale Baill from different origin and Rh:franzenbachii munt were treated respectively by cluster analysis provided by OPUS software and convolution transform-visualization-similarity (CVS) analysis developed by SMMU.Result Cluster analysis resulted in some confusion of the medicinal materials with each other, while the CVS analysis provided a better resolution.The similarity coefficients of the authentic and pseudo herbs were less than 0.68.The coefficients within the authentic herbs were greater than 0.81, while those within the same production area were greater than 0.92.Conclusion The simple and fast NIRDRS combined with CVS analysis provided a new approach to identify Rheum officinale Baill from different origin and Rh:franzenbachii munt which coincided quite well with the traditional morphological classification of the traditional Chinese medicines.