The aim of this study was to authenticate five types of Romanian honey (raspberry, rape, thyme, sunflower and mint) using a voltammetric tongue (VE tongue) technique. For the electronic tongue system, six electrodes (silver, gold, platinum, glass, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide) were used. The results of the melissopalynological analysis were supplemented by the data obtained with the electronic voltammetric tongue system. The results were interpreted by means of principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). In this way, the usefulness of the working electrodes was compared for determining the botanical origin of the honey samples. The electrodes of titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, and silver were more useful, as the results obtained with these electrodes showed that it was achieved a better classification of honey according to its botanical origin. The comparison of the results of the electronic voltammetric tongue technique with those obtained by melissopalynological analysis showed that the technique was able to accurately classify 92.7% of the original grouped cases. The similarity of results confirmed the ability of the electronic voltammetric tongue technique to perform a rapid characterization of honey samples, which complements its advantages of being an easy-to-use and cheap method of analysis.
Keywords: VE tongue; authentication; honey; melissopalynological analysis.