Greenness, blueness, and whiteness assessed rapid eco-friendly ATR/FTIR method coupled with multivariate analysis for...

Clove (Syzygium aromaticum L.), a very well-known spice and a famous food ingredient, is recommended to treat numerous conditions along with daily household usage. Quality is crucial with clove considering factors like adulteration, substitution, and variation in chemical constituents in different parts of clove plant. An unfaltering method based on attenuated total reflectance - Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) technique was developed to evaluate quality of clove. Total 10 different clove bud samples including authenticated in-house sample were studied for both clove bud parts: Clove hypanthium (flower stalk) and the Clove crown (the bud's cap and petals) as they are having different chemical compositions. The spectra were recorded in transmittance mode and data was coupled with chemometric method - Principal Component Analysis to assess the quality of clove market samples. In Principal Component Analysis (PCA), two separate groups were differentiated based on the chemical variation. The clove hypanthium part cluster in PCA with richer chemical constituents in developed method can be used to assess the quality of unknown market samples. Furthermore, Method was assessed for novel eco-friendly approach for a green, blue, and white substitution over conventional analytical techniques. The greenness evaluation was performed through AGREE (Score: 0.95), and Complex GAPI (Score: 85); Blueness through BAGI (Score: 80); and Whiteness through the precise re-versioned RGB (Score: Ex ante- 91.8, Ex post- 91.4). These assessments suggest cost-effectiveness and sustainability of the method. The developed method is simple, cost-effective, fast, precise, sustainable and stable for routine quality control of clove.