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Spectroelectrochemistry: An Alternative Tool for Drug Detection and Identification in Seized Drug Scenarios
Monday, March 08, 2021: 1:30 PM - 1:50 PM
Speaker(s)
Description
Routine seized drug field testing uses color tests as presumptive identification of illegal substances. To compensate for the rapid increase of caseloads, several U.S. jurisdictions have accepted field test results at preliminary hearings. Nonetheless, the emergence of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) had to change the drug landscape and brought additional challenges to color assays. Spot tests are not sensitive or selective enough to new drug formulations, increasing the number of false-positive and false-negative results, and therefore not meeting legal standards for preliminary hearings. As a direct consequence, the judiciary system suffers overloading of casework which increase backlogs and raise costs of analysis and incarceration times. Therefore, there is a critical need to develop alternative rapid, cost-effective, and reliable screening methods for in-situ drug identification. In this presentation, we will introduce our recent efforts towards the integration of smart and cost-effective portable technologies to integrate crime scenes with the forensic laboratories in real-time. Powerful electrochemical (EC) techniques are presented as surrogate technologies to detect emerging drugs, like fentanyl and NPS, in drug trafficking and seized drug cases. Raman spectroscopy is explored as an orthogonal approach to EC to enhance the scientific value of the evidence. The utilization of simple, cheap, and disposable screen-printed electrodes (SPE) attached to portable electrochemical units, and Raman spectroscopy represents a feasible solution to streamline high-volume casework settings. The development of nanoparticle modifications to enhance the discrimination, sensitivity, and accuracy of EC and Raman is discussed for model drug,s including fentanyl.
Additional Info
Keywords: Please select up to 4 keywords ONLY:
Spectroelectrochemistry,Voltammetry,Spectroscopy
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