File:Ethanol near IR spectrum.png

Summary
Ethanol near IR spectrum. I took this spectrum using an Ocean Optics near IR (NIR-512) temperature-regulated InGaAs detector spectrometer with IR fiber optic light guide. This is a very rough spectrum and should not be used for any kind of quantitative data whatsoever. I took it by shining the light from a halogen lightbulb through a tiny (~20ml) beaker of liquid ethanol (~2cm liquid optical path) and into the fiber optic of the spectrometer (I subtracted the spectrum of the empty beaker before taking this one). The spectrometer was not really intended to be used this way and it is a very sloppy way to take a spectrum! Nonetheless, based on comparing it to simillarly taken spectra of water and methanol (and other professionally traken nir ethanol spectra), with the exception of the region between about 1400 and 1600nm (this region is saturated by very strong absorbance), I think it likely fairly accurately shows real features of the NIR spectrum of this compound.