Rapid Differentiation of Pharmaceutical Biomolecules: Ginseng and Adulterants

Quality of pharmaceutical products such as ginseng is important for ensuring consumer safety and efficacy. Ginseng is an expensive herb, and adulteration with other cheaper products occurs. Commercial ginseng products now come in various formulations and traditional means of authentication via smell, taste or physical appearance are hardly reliable. Thus, quality assurance of ginseng is needed. Herbs like ginseng tend to exhibit characteristic infrared fingerprints due to their different chemical constituents. We report a rapid means of distinguishing American and Asian ginsengs from two morphological adulterants -sawdust and Platycodon grandiflorum, via principal component analysis of their infrared spectra. Our results show that ginseng can be distinguished from these two adulterants. Hence infrared spectroscopy can be used as a novel analytical technique in the rapid differentiation between ginseng and adulterants.