Identification of the New Psychoactive Substance Eutylone

Abstract

ObjectiveTo establish a method to identify unknown sample based on the combined use of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy （FTIR）, gas chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry （GC-QTOF-MS）, ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-linear ion trap quadrupole-orbitrap mass spectrometry （UPLC-LTQ-Orbitrap MS） and 1H-nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy （1H-NMR） technique.MethodsThe unknown sample was directly analyzed by FTIR. The unknown sample was dissolved in methanol solution containing internal standard SKF525A and the supernatant was detected by GC-QTOF-MS and UPLC-LTQ-Orbitrap MS. The unknown sample was dissolved in methanol-d4 solution for structural analysis of 1H-NMR.ResultsThe characteristic absorption peaks of FTIR spectra obtained from unknown sample were 1 682 （C=O bond）, 1 503, 1 488, 1 436, 1 363, 1 256, 1 092, 1 035, 935, 840 and 800 cm-1, the characteristic fragment ions （m/z） of GC-QTOF-MS were 86.096 4 （base peak）, 58.065 1, 149.023 5, 121.028 6 and 65.038 6, the accurate mass [M+H]+ detected by UPLC-LTQ-Orbitrap MS was 236.127 7. The sample was identified as synthetic cathinone new psychoactive substance Eutylone by 1H-NMR.ConclusionThe method established in this study can be used for structural confirmation of Eutylone.

Keywords

• forensic toxicological analysis
• new psychoactive substance
• synthetic cathinones
• eutylone
• fourier transform infrared spectroscopy （ftir）
• gas chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectro-metry （gc-qtof-ms）
• ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-linear ion trap quadrupole-orbitrap mass spectrometry （uplc-ltq-orbitrap ms）
• 1h-nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy （1h-nmr）