Spectroscopic Techniques for Nondestructive Quality Inspection of Pharmaceutical Products: A Review

Abstract

Spectroscopy is an emerging technology for the quality assessment of pharmaceutical samples, from tablet manufacturing to final quality assurance. The traditional methods for the quality management of pharmaceutical tablets are time consuming and destructive, while spectroscopic techniques allow rapid analysis in a non-destructive manner. The advantage of spectroscopy is that it collects both spatial and spectral information (called hyperspectral imaging), which is useful for the chemical imaging of pharmaceutical samples. These chemical images provide both qualitative and quantitative information on tablet samples. In the pharmaceutics, spectroscopic techniques are used for a variety of applications, such as analysis of the homogeneity of powder samples as well as determination of particle size, product composition, and the concentration, uniformity, and distribution of the active pharmaceutical ingredient in solid tablets. This review paper presents an introduction to the applications of various spectroscopic techniques such as hyperspectroscopy and vibrational spectroscopies (Raman spectroscopy, FT-NIR, and IR spectroscopy) for the quality and safety assessment of pharmaceutical solid dosage forms. In addition, various chemometric techniques that are highly essential for analyzing the spectroscopic data of pharmaceutical samples are also reviewed.