Crater–Spectrum Feature Fusion Method for Panax notoginseng Cadmium Detection Using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy

Abstract

Panax notoginseng (P. notoginseng) is a valuable herbal medicine, as well as a dietary food supplement known for its satisfactory clinical efficacy in alleviating blood stasis, reducing swelling, and relieving pain. However, the ability of P. notoginseng to absorb and accumulate cadmium (Cd) poses a significant environmental pollution risk and potential health hazards to humans. In this study, we employed laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) for the rapid detection of Cd. It is important to note that signal uncertainty can impact the quantification performance of LIBS. Hence, we proposed the crater–spectrum feature fusion method, which comprises ablation crater morphology compensation and characteristic peak ratio correction (CPRC), to explore the feasibility of signal uncertainty reduction. The crater morphology compensation method, namely, adding variables using multiple linear regression (MLR) analysis, decreased the root-mean-square error of the prediction set (RMSEP) from 7.0233 μg/g to 5.4043 μg/g. The prediction results were achieved after CPRC pretreatment using the calibration curve model with an RMSEP of 3.4980 μg/g, a limit of detection of 1.92 μg/g, and a limit of quantification of 6.41 μg/g. The crater–spectrum feature fusion method reached the lowest RMSEP of 2.8556 μg/g, based on a least-squares support vector machine (LSSVM) model. The preliminary results suggest the effectiveness of the crater–spectrum feature fusion method for detecting Cd. Furthermore, this method has the potential to be extended to detect other toxic metals in addition to Cd, which significantly contributes to ensuring the quality and safety of agricultural production.