Identification of Magnesium Oxychloride Cement Biomaterial Heterogeneity using Raman Chemical Mapping and NIR Hyperspectral Chemical Imaging

The present study investigated spatial heterogeneity in magnesium oxychloride cements within a model of a mould using hyperspectral chemical imaging (HCI). The ability to inspect cements within a mould allows for the assessment of material formation in real time in addition to factors affecting ultimate material formation. Both macro scale NIR HCI and micro scale pixel-wise Raman chemical mapping were employed to characterise the same specimens. NIR imaging is rapid, however spectra are often convoluted through the overlapping of overtone peaks, which can make interpretation difficult. Raman spectra are more easily interpretable, however Raman imaging can suffer from slower acquisition times, particularly when the signal to noise ratio is relatively poor and the spatial resolution is high. To overcome the limitations of both, Raman/NIR data fusion techniques were explored and implemented. Spectra collected using both modalities were co-registered and intra and inter-modality peak correlations were investigated while k-means cluster patterns were compared. In addition, partial least squares regression models, built using NIR spectra, predicted chemical-identifying Raman peaks with an R(2) of up to >0.98. As macro scale imaging presented greater data collection speeds, chemical prediction maps were built using NIR HCIs.