SHF: Medium: Collaborative Research: Materials authentication using nuclear quadrupole resonance spectroscopy

假冒伪劣药品、膳食补充剂和含有极其有害污染物的食品已成为全球卫生行业的一个主要问题。包装药品等高价值物品通常通过不可信的供应链在网上销售，特别容易发生欺诈。该项目旨在开发和测试新型低成本材料认证技术，使最终用户能够轻松可靠地验证药物和膳食补充剂的化学成分。拟议的认证技术的广泛采用可以通过大大加强药品和食品供应链的安全性来对公众健康产生影响。所提出的认证方法是基于将被测材料产生的核四极共振（NQR）光谱与存储在安全数据库中的参考光谱进行比较。元素周期表中大约一半的元素的原子都含有所谓的四极核，它们会产生NQR信号。该项目将重点关注氮的光谱，氮存在于绝大多数制药产品中。NQR光谱对化学成分和物理性质高度敏感，因此作为独特的“化学指纹”，难以模仿或伪造。将开发低功耗便携式电子设备和集成系统，用于非侵入性、非破坏性和定量测试的仪器，用于结合传感、软件和数据收集/分析。

Counterfeit and substandard pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements, and food items containing extremely harmful contaminants have emerged as a major problem worldwide for the health industry. High-value items such as packaged medicines, which are often sold online through untrusted supply chains, are particularly prone to fraud. This project aims to develop and test novel low-cost materials authentication techniques that would enable end users to easily and reliably verify the chemical composition of medicines and dietary supplements. The widespread adoption of the proposed authentication technology could have an impact on public health by significantly enhancing the security of the supply chain for pharmaceutical and food products. The proposed authentication approach is based on comparing the Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance (NQR) spectra generated by the material under test with reference spectra stored in a secure database. The atoms of about half of all the elements in the periodic table contain so-called quadrupolar nuclei that generate NQR signals. This project will focus on the spectra of nitrogen, which is found in a large majority of pharmaceutical products. The NQR spectra are highly sensitive to chemical composition and physical properties, and thus act as unique "chemical fingerprints" that are difficult to emulate or falsify. Low power portable electronics and an integrated system resulting in instrumentation for noninvasive, nondestructive and quantitative testing will be developed for combining sensing, software, and data collection/analysis.