Determination of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATSs) and synthetic cathinones in urine using solid phase micro-extraction fibre tips and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Abstract

In recent years, an increasing number of stimulant drugs and new psychoactive substances (NPSs) have caused concern in scientific communities and therefore innovative methods to extract compounds from complex biological samples are required. This work is aimed at developing and validating a clean, convenient and straightforward extraction procedure with microliter amounts of organic solvent using Solid Phase Micro-Extraction tips (SPME tips) and analysis using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) in human urine samples. Another aim is to evaluate three different types of SPME fibre tips C18, C18-SCX (mixed mode) and PDMS-DVB. The quantification method examined the different classes of stimulant compounds included Amphetamine-Type Stimulants (ATSs) (amphetamine, methamphetamine, para-methoxyamphetamine (PMA), and (±)-3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)) and synthetic cathinones (mephedrone, buphedrine (buphedrone ephedrine metabolite), 4-methylephedrine (mephedrone metabolite), and pentylone). The method was developed with respect to several areas of the experimental design including pH, ionic strength, addition of salts, vial dimensions, analytes and derivatisation, type of solvents, solvent volume, extraction and desorption time, agitation speeds in the extraction and desorption steps and matrix volume. The optimised method was validated for eight compounds using the SPME PDMS/DVB fibre tips with satisfactory linearity and selectivity ranging between 50 and 2000 ng mL⁻¹, and limits of detection (LODs) and low limits of quantification (LLOQs) ranging between (5–25) and (25–100) ng mL⁻¹ respectively. Within-run and between-run accuracy and precision were <15%. The method was applied to real human urine samples indicating its suitability for common stimulant drugs and provided clean chromatograms with no interfering peaks. The assessment of green analytical chemistry for the method used was discussed and compared with Solid Phase Extraction (SPE). According to the results obtained we recommend the method for use in routine laboratories carrying out drug/forensic analysis for confirmation tests of the studied compounds.