Application of two-dimensional near-infrared correlation spectroscopy to the discrimination of Chinese herbal medicine of different geographic regions

Fructus Lycii is a traditional Chinese medicinal herb. The objective of this paper was to apply two-dimensional (2D) near-infrared (NIR) correlation spectroscopy to the discrimination of Fructus Lycii of four different geographic regions. Generalized 2D-NIR correlation spectroscopy was able to enhance spectral resolution, simplify the spectrum with overlapped bands, and provide information about temperature-induced spectral intensity variations that was hard to obtain from one-dimensional NIR spectroscopy. The 2D synchronous and asynchronous spectra showed remarkable differences within the range of 4950–5700 cm−1 between samples of different geographic regions. Using NIR instead of IR made the 2D approach more convenient and fast, and it can be applied to more area like process control. This approach can also be applied analogously to the discrimination of other Chinese herbal medicine of different geographic regions.