Chemical Imaging: An overview and its Applications in Pharmaceutical Processes and Quality Control

Chemical imaging technique is very useful tool for pharmaceutical quality control and optimization of pharmaceutical processes. It is a fusion of vibrational spectroscopy and imaging techniques. Real time process control is major advantage of this technique. Studying spatial distribution and localizing different components in multicomponent samples is a gift of chemical imaging. Advanced image processing and multivariate statistical methods are used to extract the useful information from the chemical images. Chemical imaging is applied for many quality control tests which are discussed in this article. Defective articles can be identified and removed from the bulk with the help of chemical imaging and thus minimizing the risk of defective sample getting into the finished product line. Thus it can be promising tool with faster image acquisition in a lower cost with better image processing tools in near future.