Can X-Ray Powder Diffraction Be a Suitable Forensic Method for Illicit Drug Identification?

Bronislav Jurásek; Vilém Bartůněk; Štěpán Huber; Patrik Fagan; Vladimír Setnička; František Králík; Wim Dehaen; Daniel Svozil; Martin Kuchař

doi:10.3389/fchem.2020.00499

Can X-Ray Powder Diffraction Be a Suitable Forensic Method for Illicit Drug Identification?

Front Chem. 2020 Jun 23:8:499. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2020.00499. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Bronislav Jurásek¹, Vilém Bartůněk², Štěpán Huber², Patrik Fagan³, Vladimír Setnička³, František Králík³, Wim Dehaen⁴, Daniel Svozil⁴, Martin Kuchař¹

Affiliations

¹ Forensic Laboratory of Biologically Active Substances, Department of Chemistry of Natural Compounds, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Prague, Czechia.
² Department of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Prague, Czechia.
³ Department of Analytical Chemistry, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Prague, Czechia.
⁴ CZ-OPENSCREEN: National Infrastructure for Chemical Biology, Department of Informatics and Chemistry, Faculty of Chemical Technology, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Prague, Czechia.

Abstract

New psychoactive substances (NPSs) are associated with a significant number of intoxications. With the number of readily available forms of these drugs rising every year, there are even risks for the general public. Consequently, there is a high demand for methods sufficiently sensitive to detect NPSs in samples found at the crime scene. Infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopies are commonly used for such detection, but they have limitations; for example, fluorescence in Raman can overlay the signal and when the sample is a mixture sometimes neither Raman nor IR is able to identify the compounds. Here, we investigate the potential of X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) to analyse samples seized on the black market. A series of psychoactive substances (heroin, cocaine, mephedrone, ephylone, butylone, JWH-073, and naphyrone) was measured. Comparison of their diffraction patterns with those of the respective standards showed that XRPD was able to identify each of the substances. The same samples were analyzed using IR and Raman, which in both cases were not able to detect the compounds in all of the samples. These results suggest that XRPD could be a valuable addition to the range of forensic tools used to detect these compounds in illicit drug samples.

Keywords: Raman spectroscopy; X-ray powder diffraction; drug detection; infrared spectroscopy; new psychoactive substances.