Chemometrics and infrared spectroscopy – A winning team for the analysis of illicit drug productsAbstract

Spectroscopic techniques such as infrared spectroscopy
and Raman spectroscopy are used for a long
time in the context of the analysis of illicit drugs, and
their use is increasing due to the development of more
performant portable devices and easy application in the
context of harm reduction through drug checking or
onsite forensic analysis. Although these instruments are
routinely used with a spectral library, the importance of
chemometric techniques to extract relevant information
and give a full characterisation of samples, especially in
the context of adulteration, is increasing. This review
gives an overview of the applications described in the
context of the analysis of illicit drug products exploiting
the advantages of the combination of spectroscopy with
chemometrics. Next to an overview of the literature, the
review also tries to emphasize the shortcomings of the
presented research papers and to give an incentive to
what is needed to include chemometrics as a part of the
daily routine of drug checking services and mobile forensic
applications.