Strategies for organic impurity quantification by 1H NMR spectroscopy: Constrained total-line-shape fitting

A constrained total-line-shape (CTLS) fitting strategy for organic impurity analysis from 1H NMR spectra was developed and assessed by studying two examples. In general, total-line-shape fitting allows integration of overlapping lines without suffering from baseline artifacts as much as traditional integration methods. It is shown here that the constrained total-line-shape fitting, where the spectral structures of the multiplets to be fitted are taken into account in form of constraints, allows quantification of seriously overlapping lines and when the signals are close to the root of major signals. Also, a method for removal of 13C satellite signals is described. The results indicate that our approach significantly improves the usefulness of qNMR in impurity analysis and that impurity levels of 0.1 mol%, which in some cases means down to 0.01 wt%, can be easily determined with relative standard error smaller than 10%.