Reaction monitoring in explorative organic synthesis using fiber-optical NIR spectroscopy and principal component analysis

A method of combining spectroscopy and multivariate data analysis for obtaining quantitative information on how a reaction proceeds is presented. The method is an approach for the explorative synthetic organic laboratory rather than the analytical chemistry laboratory. The method implements near-infrared spectroscopy with an optical fiber transreflectance probe as instrumentation. The data analysis consists of decomposition of the spectral data, which are recorded during the course of a reaction by using principal component analysis to obtain latent variables, scores, and Loading. From the scores and the corresponding reaction time, it is possible to obtain a reaction profile. This reaction profile can easily be recalculated to obtain the concentration profile over time. This calculation is based on only two quantitative measurements, which can be (1) measurement from the work-up of the reaction or (2) chromatographic analysis from two withdrawn samples during the reaction. The method is applied to the synthesis of 3-amino-propan-1,2-diol.