Parallel imaging of active pharmaceutical ingredients in some tablets and blends on Raman and near-infrared mapping and imaging platforms

Abstract

Two types of tablets with the arbitrarily defined low and medium active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) loadings and a formulation blend with intentionally introduced large API agglomerate were inspected on Raman mapping and global imaging platforms as well as on the near-infrared (NIR) mapping platform. Only the API particles were identified and their images compared on the three systems. Several technical parameters were closely controlled such as spatial resolution in the images and acquisition times. The Raman mapping platform was found to be the most effective for determining the API in the low-loading formulation which was not analyzable by the other two methods. With regards to the medium loading of API in a tablet and the blend with an API agglomerate, the chemical images on all three platforms were found to be largely comparable with, in relative terms, the NIR mapping being the fastest and least complex to use.