Analysis of Ketamine, a Rave Drug in Pakistan, using Gas Chromatography Coupled with Mass Spectrometer and Flame Ionization Detector: A Case Study

Abstract

Ketamine is an arylcycloalkylamine, classified as cyclidine and chemically related to phencyclidine (PCP). Ketamine can be identified using modified Scott’s Test and Alkaline Gold Bromide test. This case study involved the analysis of a Ketamine sample. The sample was analyzed qualitatively by chemical spot tests, FT-IR and GC-MS without derivatization. Furthermore, a developed and validated method was used for the quantitative analysis of Ketamine using Gas Chromatography with a Flame Ionization Detector (FID). The certified reference standard of Ketamine in the range of 10- 100μg/mL was used for developing linear correlation with regression coefficient (R2 = 0.9997) for the method. The method produced percentage of sample as 90.27%. The above mentioned techniques and methods provide comparable qualitative and quantitative analytical results helping law enforcement agencies and the forensic community in screening and quantification of ketamine using GCMS coupled with FID.

Keywords

• forensic sciences
• ketamine analysis
• gcms
• ftir
• narcotic/illicit drug abuse
• fid