Gas chromatographic-mass spectrometry and chemometric analysis for detection and quantification of paraffin in beeswax

Abstract

GC-MS fingerprint analysis, principle component analysis (PCA), and partial least square (PLS) analysis were introduced for detection and quantification of paraffin in beeswax. Firstly, beeswax, paraffin and standard adulterated samples were prepared and analyzed by GC-MS. Secondly, seventeen chromatographic peaks were selected as characteristic peaks and their relative peak areas (RPAs) were calculated for quantitative expression of the GC-MS fingerprints. Then, the PCA is performed after a suitable data processing. The scores of PCA showed that two types of beeswax and paraffin could be clustered reasonably into different groups. Lastly, Seven PLS factors were selected to build the PLS model with cross-validation. The plot of the predicted concentration versus the actual concentration values appeared to show the high precision of model. Therefore, GC-MS fingerprint in combination with chemometric techniques provide a very flexible method for detection and quantification of paraffin in beeswax.