An application note has been published showing that Malvern's near-infrared chemical imaging supports reverse engineering of pharmaceutical tablets for troubleshooting product failures.
Chemical imaging specialists at Malvern Instruments demonstrated that by reverse engineering pharmaceutical tablets using data from the Synirgi near-infrared chemical imaging (NIR-CI) system they could determine extensive and detailed information about the formulations and processing techniques used to create each dosage.
This has valuable applications in troubleshooting product failures.
While high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) can provide basic information about a product's make-up, the application of NIR-CI adds extra information relating to its manufacture.
Using Malvern's Isys chemical imaging analysis software to evaluate the size, shape and proximity of chemical components, Synirgi's global imaging approach provides a visual representation of a product's composition and engineered structure.
Synirgi delivers automated sampling capabilities that deliver rapid data acquisition as well as advanced data analysis via an easy-to-use interface.
The NIR-CI technique demonstrated in Malvern's application note uses Synirgi hardware and Isys software.
This type of reverse engineering has demonstrated the ability to help understand product failures and can primarily be used for troubleshooting.
The chemical and physical information in a chemical image provides a fingerprint of the tablet's production properties and ultimately, its performance.
It is suitable for pharmaceutical dosage analysis and enables refined quality control.
The application note, entitled 'NIR chemical imaging for tablet deconstruction: A case study for solid dosage forms', can be downloaded from Malvern's website.