Differentiation of ring-substituted regioisomers of amphetamine and methamphetamine by supercritical fluid chromatography

What is it about?

There are many kinds of new psychoactive substances (NPS) whose chemical structures are slightly modified from the already controlled drugs of abuse. Thus it is important to precisely differentiate structurally similar NPS. In this study we have developed a method to achieve this goal using supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). Due to SFC's high-speed and high-selectivity, thirty NPS classified as the ring-substituted regioisomeric analogs of amphetamine and methamphetamine were differentiated.

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Why is it important?

Application of SFC to forensic drug analysis is currently not popular in comparison to liquid chromatography and gas chromatography. This paper indicates that SFC can be a powerful analytical technique of drugs of abuse. In addition, we described the ability to distinguish the type and position of substituents on benzen ring. It was suggested that the combination of mass spectrometry and ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy was useful and successfully identify the type and position of substituents on benzen ring.