A contemporary review on Data Preprocessing (DP) practice strategy in ATR-FTIR spectrum

•There has been increasing interest in ATR-FTIR spectroscopy in diverse field of application.•Data preprocessing (DP) has not been given considerable attention by most ATR-FTIR spectroscopists.•DP methods of choice have most likely been selected according to examples from literature and have limited to derivatives, mean-centering and normalization to sum.•Post-DP application assessment is not widely practiced.•Rationales which could possibly have contributed to malpractice have been discussed.

ATR-FTIR spectroscopy in the combination with chemometrics has been practiced over the past decades. Works presented in numerous disciplines provide ample empirical evidence in support for the coupling relationship. However, Data Pre-processing (DP) which constitutes the first step in chemometric analysis pipelines, is seldom given reasonable attentions. The aim of this paper is two-fold: (a) to review contemporary DP practice strategy by ATR-FTIR user, and (b) to critically discuss the rationales that could have been nurturing such practices. In the first part, basic concepts of chemometrics and ATR-FTIR spectroscopy are described. Then, the status quo of DP practice strategy is outlined and critically discussed on whether the contemporary practice has been malpractice or best practice. Finally, rationales that could have possibly contributed to some of the malpractices are discussed.

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