DEVELOPMENT OF A FINGERPRINT METHOD FOR ANIMAL HORN CLASSIFICATION BY LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY COUPLED WITH HIERARCHICAL CLUSTERING ANALYSIS

摘要

A validated liquid chromatography (LC) method coupled with hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) has been established for investigating the fingerprint chromatograms of ten kinds of animal horns. The method showed good performances in terms of precision, repeatability, linearity, accuracy, and stability. The results showed that the LC fingerprint method coupled with HCA could be used to classify animal horns, which could make it simple and feasible to search substitution of precious horns.