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Pharmaceutical Analysis with NIR Hyperspectral Imaging

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In pharmaceutical analysis fillers and active components can be differentiated and quanitifed using spectra in the Near Infrared. The new Near Infrared Spectralcamera by Specim allows a rapid analysis of drugs during process and in the laboratory with high spatial resolution of 20 µm and spectral resolution of better than 6 nm. Moving objects can be analyzed immediately and result in two dimensional hyperspectral images of the objects. Analysis of several drugs at once can be performed in less than a minute. The spectral results are taken in either the range of 900 nm to 1700 nm or 900 nm to 2500 nm depending on the detector in use.

Pharmaceutical products like pills or capsules consist of drugs and fillers. It is necessary during production to know the kind of material, as well as their quantity and distribution in the product.
Drugs and fillers show absorption bands in the Near Infrared (900 nm to 1700 nm) and in the extended range, usually called the shortwave infrared (900 nm bis 2500 nm). Different materials can be separated by such absorption spectra. This is why NIR spectroscopy is a good tool for the non destructive analysis of pharmaceutical products.
Usually such analysis had been made with a limited spatial resolution, even only on points. The new NIR Hyperspectral Analyser of Specim allows a high resolution spectral measurement, differentiating with 6 nm spectral resolution. The simultaneous measurement of 320 spectra one beside the other, with a spatial resolution of better than 20 µm allows a fast two dimensional analysis of moving pharmaceutical products.
Basis is the modern technology of imaging spectrographs, which allows the simultaneous acquisition of a line of the object, which is fragmented point by point to 320 spectra, each spectrum representing 256 spectral bands leading to a resolution of 6 nm. 50 lines per second can be acquired and give a fast two dimensional spectral distribution of an object.

The system can be focused to measure single tablets with a spatial resolution of 20 µm as well as scan and analyse several moving tablets lying one beside the other. Thus it is possible to see drugs and fillers and analyse their distribution in order to control the production process.
Hyperspectral imaging is a new tool in different wavelength ranges, the UV, as well the visible, the NIR, Shortwave IR and even the longwave IR and is used in research and production controll in the polymer, chemical, pigment industry but also medicine, biology, optics and geology.