Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) as a Tool to Analyze Phenolic Compounds in Plants

Phenolics are related to a number of pharmacological effects and form an important category among secondary plant metabolites. For many years well established and highly efficient methods such as UV spectroscopy, high perform- ance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry and capillary electrophore- sis have been used for determination. In the last years, near infrared spectroscopy with its benefits such as being non- invasive, rapid, almost no necessary sample preparation, on-/inline measurements, being able to determine physical and chemical parameters simultaneously, became a widely used analytical technique in phyto-analytics and is included in pharmacopeias to an increasing extent (1). This manuscript reviews recent applications of NIRS in the analysis of pheno- lic compounds in plant material.