Analyte pulse perturbation technique for the determination of 6-O- acetylmorphine in seized street drug samples

Abstract

A pulse perturbation technique was applied to the Bray-Liebhafsky (BL) oscillatory reaction system in a stable nonequilibrium stationary state close to the bifurcation point, to determine micro-quantitatively 6-O-acetylmorphine (6-O-AM). The proposed method, in optimized reaction conditions ([KIO 3]0 = 5.9 × 10-2 M, [H2SO 4]0 = 5.5 × 10-2 M, and [H 2O2]0 = 2.0 × 10-1 M, j o = 2.95 × 10-2 min-1, and T = 42.9°C), relied on the linear relationship between maximal potential shift, ΔEm, caused by perturbation, and the logarithm of the amount of 6-O-acetylmorphine. The method had a rather good sample throughput of 40 samples h-1 with the sensitivity determined to be 0.9 μgmL -1 and the precision RSD = 1.8%. The proposed method was successfully applied to the quantitative determination of 6-O-AM in a real seized street drug sample. The obtained result agrees with those obtained by HPLC. There was no interference from structurally related and associated compounds, such as papaverin, noscapin, and heroin. © 2007 The Chemical Society of Japan.