[Infrared Spectrum Analysis of Propolis and Tree Gum Collected from Different Areas]

Propolis possesses functions of antibacterial, antiviral, anticancer, and liver protection, and is known as the "purple gold", however, the phenomenon which making and selling of counterfeit are growing in intensity. In order to establish a authenticity and quality of propolis evaluation model, in this paper, forty-one Chinese propolis, one proplis from United States and two tree gums were used for experimental materials. The infrared spectrum collection was performed by Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, and principal component analysis (PCA) was used for data analysis. The result showed that, the intrared spectrum of propolis and tree gum were significantly different. The propolis characteristic peak only appeared in 2500-3500 and 400-1800 cm⁻¹. All propolis had two frequency region of characteristic peaks, 2849.08-2848.53 and 2917.74- 2916.76 cm⁻¹, but tree gum did not have characteristic peak in this region. The characteristic peaks of gum were in 1150-1300 and 1550-1650 cm⁻¹. Differences in these aspects can be used to distinguish propolis and gum, and can be used to identify true and false propolis. We use Qinghai propolis as a standard sample, in 42 samples, the matching degree of other propolis is > 80%. In addition, the result of PCA shows that tree gum and the propolis from different climate zone, or with different colors could be distinguished well. This paper firstly performed analysis on different propolis and gum by infrared spectrum, and a new method, for authenticity and quality of propolis identification, could be developed.