Measurement of CO in Water from an Ultraviolet Oxidizer for a Space-Worthy Wastewater Recovery System Using Raman Spectroscopy.

NASA has been developing and testing a water recovery system for over two decades to minimize the amount of water required for long duration human space missions. A key system component is the total organic carbon analyzer (TOCA) that determines if the recovered water is below the toxicology-defined health limit of 5 mg/L TOC and is safe to drink. The TOCA is composed of a liquid phase loop and a gas phase loop.

Drug Content Uniformity: Quantifying Loratadine in Tablets Using a Created Raman Excipient Spectrum.

Raman spectroscopy has proven valuable for determining the composition of manufactured drug products, as well as identifying counterfeit drugs. Here we present a simple method to determine the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) mass percent in a sample that does not require knowledge of the identities or relative mass percents of the inactive pharmaceutical ingredients (excipients). And further, we demonstrated the ability of the method to pass or fail a manufactured drug product batch based on a calculated acceptance value in accordance with the US Pharmacopeia method for content uniformity.

A Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectral Library of Important Drugs Associated With Point-of-Care and Field Applications.

During the past decade, the ability of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to measure extremely low concentrations, such as mg/L and below, and the availability of hand-held Raman spectrometers, has led to a significant growth in the number and variety of applications of SERS to real-world problems. Most of these applications involve the measurement of drugs, such as quantifying medication in patients, identifying illicit drugs in impaired drivers, and more recently, identifying drugs used as weapons. Similar to Raman spectroscopy, most of the point-of-care and field applications involve the identification of the drug to determine the course of action.

Detection of codeine and fentanyl in saliva, blood plasma and whole blood in 5-minutes using a SERS flow-separation strip.

A simple-to-use device to measure drugs in saliva, blood plasma, and whole blood for point-of-care analysis and treatment of overdose patients has been investigated. A rudimentary flow strip has been developed to separate opioids from these biofluids for analysis by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). The strips are based on lateral flow assays, in which the antibodies have been substituted by SERS-active pads for detection.

Quantitative Measurements of Codeine and Fentanyl on a Surface-Enhanced Raman-Active Pad Test.

The USA is in the midst of an opioid crisis that included over 60,000 overdose fatalities in 2017, mostly unintentional. This is due to excessive use of prescription opioids and the use of very strong synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, mixed with illicit street drugs. The ability to rapidly determine if people or packages entering the country have or contain drugs could reduce their availability, and thereby decrease the use of illicit drugs.

Analysis of Twenty-Two Performance Properties of Diesel, Gasoline, and Jet Fuels Using a Field-Portable Near-Infrared (NIR) Analyzer.

The change in custody of fuel shipments at depots, pipelines, and ports could benefit from an analyzer that could rapidly verify that properties are within specifications. To meet this need, the design requirements for a fuel analyzer based on near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, such as spectral region and resolution, were examined. It was found that the 1000 to 1600 nm region, containing the second CH overtone and combination vibrational modes of hydrocarbons, provided the best near-infrared to fuel property correlations when path length was taken into account, whereas 4 cm(-1) resolution provided only a modest improvement compared to 16 cm(-1) resolution when four or more latent variables were used.

Drug stability analysis by Raman spectroscopy.

Pharmaceutical drugs are available to astronauts to help them overcome the deleterious effects of weightlessness, sickness and injuries. Unfortunately, recent studies have shown that some of the drugs currently used may degrade more rapidly in space, losing their potency before their expiration dates. To complicate matters, the degradation products of some drugs can be toxic.

Raman spectroscopy using 1550 nm (retina-safe) laser excitation.

During the past decade, the use of portable Raman analyzers for field measurements has grown dramatically. However, most analyzers use 785 nm excitation lasers that can cause permanent eye damage. To overcome this safety concern, we have built a portable Fourier transform (FT) Raman analyzer using a 1550 nm retina-safe excitation laser and have compared its performance to our 1064 nm FT-Raman analyzer, which uses the same optical design.

[Employment supports: Perceptions of people with severe mental disorders].

Professional rehabilitation of people with severe mental illness is a field of research often left aside. Despite the aspiration of people with severe mental illness to employment, their presence in the job market remains low. Lack of supports appears to be one explanation.