Chromatography Forum

Hello,

I would like to ask if anyone knows a good way to analyse drugs of abuse on a GC/FID . We have a Chrompack CP9002 machine with a

RTX-1701, 60m x 0.32mm x 0.25µm

and a

Crosslinked Methyl Silicone (12m x 0.2mm Methyl Silicone coated) column

Silylating the different drugs of abuse can be done with the BSTFA + 1% TMCS derivatisation reagent.

Now there is the problem in choosing a good solvent.

For the esters like cocaine and heroin I thought Ethyl acetate would do it, but in my experiment it has poor solubility.

For the amines like Cristal meth and MDMA I thought Triethylamine or Pyridine would work, but those react with the BSTFA, and that isnt desireble because of the loss of derivatisation reagent.

The samples are streetdrugs and have a unknown purity.

Is there anyone who could give me some tips on how to get this experiment to work.

Thanks in advance!

Our most common solvents for use with BSTFA are DMF and pyridine. Pyridine doesn't react with BSTFA, and is actually better than DMF because it acts as a proton acceptor. The drawback to pyridine is obviously its odor, but we still do use it. GCMS is a nice tool for drugs of abuse.