Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy-based investigation and classification of pharmaceutical tablets using...

Area of Science:

• Analytical Chemistry
• Spectroscopy
• Pharmaceutical Analysis

Background:

• Pharmaceutical quality control requires rapid and accurate methods.
• Traditional methods can be time-consuming and lack on-site capabilities.
• Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) offers high chemical specificity and remote analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of LIBS for pharmaceutical tablet analysis.
• To investigate LIBS feasibility for routine pharmaceutical tablet classification.
• To explore advanced chemometric methods for LIBS data analysis.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) for elemental analysis of pharmaceutical tablets.
• Applied ratiometric analysis of oxygen and nitrogen emission lines for initial classification attempts.
• Implemented Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Soft Independent Modeling of Class Analogy (SIMCA) for multivariate data analysis.

Main Results:

• LIBS detected expected elements (C, H, N, O) and specific inorganic atoms in all tablets.
• Ratiometric analysis of O/N lines showed limitations in tablet classification.
• PCA and SIMCA algorithms successfully differentiated and classified pharmaceutical tablets.
• Supervised classification using SIMCA achieved excellent prospective accuracy.

Conclusions:

• LIBS is a powerful technique for probing pharmaceutical tablet composition.
• Chemometric algorithms (PCA, SIMCA) are essential for effective LIBS-based classification.
• LIBS coupled with SIMCA shows significant potential for process analytical technology in the pharmaceutical industry, enabling fast, on-line quality control.