Application of near infrared spectroscopy for the rapid determination of antioxidant activity of bamboo leaf extract

► First time, NIR was used to predict antioxidant activity of bamboo leaf extract. ► Three antioxidant activity indices, specifically DPPH, FRAP, and ABTS, were analysed. ► First time, spectral variable selection was used for determining antioxidant activity. ► Four regressions algorithms, specifically PLS, MLR, BP-ANN, and LS-SVM, were compared. ► Good predictive result obtained for DPPH (r = 0.863), FRAP (r = 0.910) and ABTS (r = 0.966).