Every application below started as a feasibility study on real process samples — a named matrix, a named band, a number against a reference method. Nothing here is a brochure claim about what Raman can do in principle.
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A Raman spectrum is only useful if a specific band moves with a specific quantity. These four are documented on real plant material — and two of them sit close enough together to explain why a model, not a peak-pick, does the work.
In an aqueous sodium-salt solution, the band at about 799 cm⁻¹ tracked the target product as it formed. Across the reaction stages the model followed it from roughly 90 % to above 99 %, which is precisely the region where an endpoint decision gets made.
During surfactant synthesis, the whole 820–1140 cm⁻¹ group grows as ether bonds form in the ethoxylated and propoxylated products. Conversion is followed continuously, with no sampling and no laboratory step in the loop.
Nitrate nitrogen in liquid fertiliser streams sits at about 1044 cm⁻¹; total nitrogen in granulated product with an organic coating at about 1050 cm⁻¹. With 8 cm⁻¹ resolution those two are practically the same channel — which is the clearest argument for letting a model interpret the spectrum rather than reading a peak height off a chart.
At about 1050 cm⁻¹ an unwanted isomer in an FMCG synthesis was tracked down from roughly 8.5 % to trace level. Around 780 cm⁻¹, marker bands and intensity ratios separated lighter from heavier refinery fractions. Same neighbourhood of the spectrum, different chemistry, different model.
The difference an inline analyser makes is not really accuracy. It is how many times per batch anybody gets to look.
A sample is drawn, walked to the laboratory, prepared, analysed. The number that comes back describes a batch that has already been made. If it is out of specification, the decision is about what to do with the product, not about the process.
An inline analyser returns a few to a dozen measurements per minute — over a thousand points in a multi-hour process. The trend becomes an object you can steer by rather than a pair of end points.
A few to a dozen measurements per minute — over a thousand measurement points in a process lasting several hours. Główny Mechanik, 2026
A drift that a laboratory result would have revealed at the end is visible in hour two, when there is still process time left to react.
The most valuable data is the data that arrives before the problem grows. Robert Stachurski, CEO · Polska Chemia
At a European synthetic-resin producer running inline measurement for six months: raw-material losses down 10 %, waste down 12 %, batch-to-batch variability held below 1.5 %. Those figures belong to that segment and that installation — resin economics are not water economics.
Feasibility studies from the 2026 catalogue, organised the way an engineer arrives at them: I need to follow a reaction, I need to know what is in it, or I need to release a batch.
Reaction progress, material transformation, stream identity — measured where it happens.
What else is in there, and how much of it — in matrices that defeat single-parameter sensors.
Release decisions that used to wait for titration or HPLC. The two alkyd figures are the ones worth arguing about: an acid value without titration, and a rheological property read from a spectrum.
Water and environment work includes the first Polish deployment of continuous wastewater monitoring for petroleum-derived substances, with MPWiK Wrocław. Microplastics and PFAS detection is in development, using SERS.
Send three to five samples from the actual process. The feasibility report says what is measurable, at what uncertainty, and what it would take.