Quality Control of Natural Products
Natural products such as essential oils (EOs) are a common target for falsification, due to their high economic value. Common approaches for the authenticity control of natural products are based on the analysis of a few selected markers, this approach however is mostly not sufficient to fully characterize an EO. Standard methods for the analysis consists of gas chromatography (GC) coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) or flame ionization detectors (FID).
Dendogram of hierarchical cluster analysis of different essential oils from various plant species and countries.
Our goal is to combine convenient sample preparation, modern analytical methods – e.g. triple quadrupole MS technology – with chemometric tools in order to improve quality control of EOs.