OBJECTIVETo distinguish the ginseng and American ginseng pieces accurately and rapidly by electronic nose technology and principal component analysis (PCA) method.

METHODThe optimum conditions of electronic nose for ginseng and American ginseng pieces, such as sample size and volume, headspace volume, incubation time and temperature were determined by the orthogonal test, the data were processed by the normalization method and the preprocessed data were analyzed PCA.

RESULTThe detection methods of ginseng and American ginseng pieces was established by electronic nose, and the odor fingerprint figures of ginseng and American ginseng pieces were obtained, and ginseng and American ginseng pieces were distinguished by PCA recognition pattern.

CONCLUSIONA new accurate and rapid method to distinguish ginseng and American ginseng pieces was established by electronic nose detection.