Nondestructive and rapid authentication of honey using dispersive raman spectroscopy

Abstract: Raman spectroscopy was used to measure a collection of honeys belonging to three botanical origins: chestnut, acacia, and citrus, respectively. The excitation wavelength was set at 1064 nm to mitigate fluorescence effects, and a dispersive detection scheme was used, thus allowing compactness of the optical system. The spectroscopic data were processed using Principal Component Analysis for data dimensionality reduction and explorative analysis. The score map showed three sharp groups of points, corresponding to the botanical assignment of the samples, thus confirming Raman spectroscopy as a modern tool for nondestructive quality assessment of foodstuffs.