The effect of path length, light intensity and co-added time on the detection limit associated with NIR spectroscopy of potassium hydrogen phthalate in aqueous solution

Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is a common means of non-invasively determining the concentrations of organic compounds in relatively transparent aqueous solutions. Rigorous determination for limit of detection (LOD) is of importance for the application use of NIR spectroscopy. The work reported herein determined the LOD with the analysis of potassium hydrogen phthalate (KHP) in water with partial least square (PLS) calibration in the range of 6300–5800 cm(-1) between the two strong absorption bands of water, in which the C-H overtone bands of KHP are located. A comparison of the LOD estimated when using various condition (path length, aperture and co-added scan times) showed that the lowest LOD for KHP obtained with a fiber optic cable attachment equipped NIR spectrometer is approximately 150 ppm.