Detection of pyrrolizidine alkaloid containing herbs using hyperspectral imaging in the short-wave infrared

Plants containing pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA) are unwanted contaminants in consumer products such as herbal tea due to their toxicity to humans. The detection of these plants or their components using hyperspectral imaging was investigated, with focus on application in sensor-based sorting. For this, 431hyperspectral images of leafs from three common herbs (peppermint, lemon balm, stinging nettle) and the poisonous common groundsel were acquired. By using a convolutional neural network, a mean F1 score of 0.89 was obtained for the classification of all four plant products based on the individual spectra. To validate the neural network, significant wavelengths were determined and visualized in an attribution map.