Tracing floral and geographical origins of honeys by potentiometric and voltammetric electronic tongue

• Different honeys were tested by potentiometric and voltammetric electronic tongues.
• The analysis results of two electronic tongues were compared with each other.
• Five mathematical tools were used for honeys classification and forecast.

A potentiometric electronic tongue (PE-tongue) and a voltammetric electronic tongue (VE-tongue) were used as rapid techniques to classify and predict the honey samples from different floral and geographical origins. The PE-tongue, which was named α-ASTREE, was developed by Alpha M.O.S. (Toulouse, France), and it comprises seven potentiometric chemical sensors. The VE-tongue was self-developed at Zhejiang University and comprises six metallic working sensors. Four types of honey of different floral origins (acacia, buckwheat, data, and motherwort) and four types of acacia honey of different geographical origins were classified by both multisensor systems. Multivariate statistical data analysis techniques such as principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant function analysis (DFA) were used to classify the honey samples. Both types of electronic tongue have good potential to classify the honey samples, and the positions of the data point for the samples in the PCA score plots based on the VE-tongue were much more closely grouped. Three regression modes, principal component regression (PCR), partial least squares regression (PLSR), and least squared-support vector machines (LS-SVM), were applied for category forecasting. These regression models exhibited a clear indication of the prediction ability of the two types of electronic tongue, and a positive trend in the prediction of the floral and geographical origin of honey was found. Moreover, the performance of these regression models for predicting the four types of honey of different geographical origins by the VE-tongue is very stable.