The pharmaceutical industry relies heavily on analytical techniques for identifying and characterizing drug compounds. In this experiment, undergraduate pharmacy students explored the applications of near-infrared spectroscopy for pharmaceutical analysis and its potential for identifying patterns and relationships among pharmaceutical samples. In addition, they were introduced to the chemometrics field using classical pretreatment and data exploration methods. To reduce the need for expensive instrumental equipment, we have developed a small and affordable device based on the DLP NIRscan Nano EVM by Texas Instruments using free software solutions and a 3D-printed case for Raspberry Pi single-board computers. The goal of the experiment was to guide students through all the necessary steps for measuring and analyzing samples using NIR spectroscopy and to encourage their learning through the application of mathematical methods in a defined laboratory setting.
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