Rapid assessment of quality of deer antler slices by using an electronic nose coupled with chemometric analysis

Deer antler is a precious animal-sourced traditional Chinese medicine. We aimed to rapidly assess the quality of deer antler slices by electronic nose so that we can ensure medical safety. In this study, response intensity of the electronic nose was favorably optimized, and samples were well assessed by using an electronic nose based on LDA model. The results obtained herein suggested that electronic nose could be an effective method to rapidly as- sess the quality of deer antler slices, and could also be an important tool for categorization of complex aroma mixtures for the control of quality of drugs or food.