Profiling of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine by means of high-performance liquid chromatography

Abstract

An impurity-profiling method for 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) is presented. The impurities of interest were extracted by solid-phase extraction (SPE) on Bakerbond C18 spe columns from a weakly alkaline solution (pH 8.5). Development of the extraction conditions covered selection of the buffer for dissolution of the sample and the volume of the eluent used to elute the impurities. An important part of the studies was to optimise the separation conditions, and the simplex method was used for this purpose. Cluster analysis was applied for comparison of samples and its grouping. The developed method was based on the areas of 33 selected peaks corresponding to MDMA impurities. All examined samples were correctly classified into clusters corresponding to the synthetic route.

Forensic Science

“…A review of recent advances in impurity profiling of illicit 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) samples has been published . Impurity-profiling for MDMA has been accomplished by comparing physical properties of the tablets using SPE and HPLC and GC/MS and for methamphetamine using GC/MS − and GC-FID and GC/MS , . A method was developed for the isolation of MDMA and other active ingredients from illicit ecstasy tablets using SPE and GC/MS and headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and liquid−liquid extraction (LLE) .…”