Quantitative determination of coenzyme Q10 from dietary supplements by FT-NIR spectroscopy and statistical analysis

A novel, time- and money-sparing method has been developed and validated for the quantitative determination of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) from several dietary supplements. FT-NIR spectroscopy was applied for the examination, and a calibration model was built by partial least-square regression (PLS-R) using 50 dietary supplements. The combination of FT-NIRS and multivariate calibration methods is a very fast and simple way to replace the commonly used HPLC-UV method; because in contrast with the traditional techniques, sample pretreatment and reagents are not required and no wastes are produced. The calibration models could be improved by different variable selection techniques (for instance interval PLS, interval selectivity ratio, genetic algorithm), which are very fast and user-friendly. The R(2) (goodness of calibration) and Q(2) (goodness of validation) of the variable selected models are highly increased, the R(2) values being over 0.90 and the Q(2) values being over 0.86 in every case. Fivefold cross-validation and external validation were applied. The developed method(s) could be used by quality assurance laboratories for routine measurement of coenzyme Q10 products.