The synthesis of metoprolol monitored using Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics

The synthesis of Metoprolol base was studied using Raman spectroscopy with a 785-nm laser, optical fibres, a holographic transmission grating, confocal optics and a charge-coupled device (CCD) detector. The reaction mixture was heated according to a temperature gradient and spectra of the reaction mixture were obtained by focusing the laser beam through ordinary reaction flasks. Because of overlapping bands, multivariate techniques such as principal components analysis (PCA) and partial least-squares projections to latent structures (PLS) were used in the evaluation of the obtained spectra. The use of PCA or PLS against time does not require any calibration samples and a quantitative calibration is not necessary in order to monitor the reaction. A method for reaction endpoint determination, based on euclidean distances in the score space, is presented. The use of multivariate batch control charts have been demonstrated and a number of problems and solutions regarding the sample presentation have been discussed. The effect of spectral pretreatment on the multivariate results is shown and discussed. The monitoring results show that the time to produce Metoprolol base could be reduced.