Near infrared spectroscopy patents for the physicochemical characterization of nanomaterials: the road from production to routine high-throughput quality control.

The measurement of the physical and chemical ("physicochemical") properties of nanomaterials used in industry and science including chemistry, pharmacy, medicine, toxicology, etc., is time-consuming, expensive and requires a lot of experience of a well trained lab staff. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR; 4.000-12.000 cm(-1)), working in the wavelength region with the highest IR energy, allows obtaining multifactorial information of the material under investigation due to the occurrence of a high number of combination and overtone vibrations. Coupling of an optimized and well-designed measurement technique with multivariate data analysis (MVA) leads to a non-destructive, fast, reliable and robust novel NIR technique for the fast and non-invasive physicochemical characterization, which is suitable for high-throughput quality control due to the short analyses times of only a few seconds. In the following chapters, the patented basic NIR techniques full-filling these aims are introduced, described, summarized and critically discussed.