The processing of medicinal materials, known as Pao Zhi in traditional Chinese medicine, is a unique part of traditional Chinese medicine and has been widely used for the preparation of Chinese materia medica. It is believed that processing can alter the properties and functions of remedies, increase medical potency, and reduce toxicity and side effects. Both processed and unprocessed Flos Lonicerae (flowers of Lonicera japonica) are important drug ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine. To gain insights on the effect of processing factors (heating temperature and duration) on the change of chemical composition, nuclear magnetic resonance combined with chemometric analysis was applied to investigate the processing of F. Lonicerae. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectral data were analyzed by means of a heat map and principal components analysis. The results indicated that the composition changed significantly, particularly when processing at the higher temperature (210 °C). Five chemical components, viz. 3,4-dicaffeoylquinic acid, 4,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid, 3,5-dicaffeoylquinic acid, chlorogenic acid, and myo-inositol, whose concentration changed significantly during the processing, were isolated and identified. The patterns for the concentration change observed from nuclear magnetic resonance analysis during the processing were confirmed and quantitatively determined by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography analysis. The study demonstrated that a nuclear magnetic resonance-based chemometric approach could be a promising tool for investigation of the processing of herbal medicines in traditional Chinese medicine.

In recent years, increasing numbers of pink-coloured CVD synthetic diamonds have appeared on the market. One of the major sources is Huzhou SinoC Semiconductor Science and Technology Co., Ltd., Zhejiang province of China. In this article, seven pink-coloured CVD-grown diamonds produced in the last two years by Huzhou have been investigated and identified, including their gemological and spectroscopic characteristics. In DiamondView, they fluoresced orange–red, with an obscure striated growth structure, which is common for CVD synthetics. The mid-IR absorption spectra of these samples showed some single nitrogen and hydrogen-related features (1130, 1344, 3123, 3323 cm−1), which indicated that the diamonds were type Ib and were CVD-grown diamonds. The H1a defect annealed out at approximately 1400 °C, whereas the 3107 cm−1 defect was produced by annealing above 1700 or 1800 °C. This implied that the samples had undergone two separate heat treatments: first, a high-temperature anneal (possibly an HPHT treatment to reduce any brown colour), which would have produced the 3107 cm−1 defects and a small number of A centres, followed by irradiation, followed by annealing above 800 °C to make the vacancies mobile. The UV–Vis–NIR absorption spectra showed distinct NV-related features (575 and 637 nm), the main reason for the pink colour. Photoluminescence spectra obtained at liquid nitrogen temperature recorded radiation-related emissions (388.9, 503.5 nm), a strong N-V centre, H3 and H2 defects, and many unassigned emissions. These pink CVD products can be separated from natural and treated pink-coloured diamonds by a combination of optical spectroscopic properties, such as fluorescence colour, and absorption features in the infrared and UV–Vis regions.

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