FEATURE PORTABLE SPECTROSCOPY
Real or fake? C
Jessica Rowbury looks at how portable spectrometers are helping in the detection of counterfeit medicines and new types of designer drugs
ounterfeit medication is a big problem, even in the Western world where there is greater testing and regulation. As an authentication tool, spectroscopy can qualify the chemical composition of a drug, and also do this through opaque packaging like blister packs. In the laboratory, this makes it an ideal analytical technique, but pharmaceutical companies, and also testing officials at distribution centres, want smaller, less expensive, and more portable equipment that they can take into the
field, and which spectrometer suppliers are starting to deliver. Typically, Raman spectroscopy is the method of choice for pharmaceutical testing. ‘Raman is good for rapid identification,’ commented Henry Langston, product manager at Ocean Optics. He said that Raman spectroscopy offers a rapid, convenient method for positive identification of pharmaceutical products and their raw materials, and that this could be on the manufacturing floor, in inventory, and at the shipping dock.
Raman is non-contact and can also penetrate glass and plastic packaging. ‘You need a technique that does not rely on visible light,’ Langston added, in order to get a reading from medicine in blister packs or green bottles. Raman spectroscopy examines materials, not
through direct absorption, but by scattering of high intensity light. The scattered radiation will be specific to the vibrational and rotational states of the sample, and therefore give a specific spectrum, the chemical fingerprint of the molecule. Ocean Optics has benchtop and portable Raman equipment, including its IDRaman mini handheld Raman spectrometer. More exact analysis of ingredients might involve NIR spectroscopy with chemo metric models – so taking thousands of spectra to build a model,
Testing drugs with Raman
20 ELECTRO OPTICS l MARCH 2016
@electrooptics |
www.electrooptics.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44