Forensic drug analysis instrumental

Moore JM (1978) The application of derivatization techniques in forensic drug analysis. In Klein M, Kruegel AV, and Sobol SP (eds.) Instrumental Applications in Forensic Drug Chemistry, pp. 180-201. Washington, DC US Government Printing Office. 

Following ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry and infrared (IR) spectroscopy, gas chromatography (GC) was one of the first instrumental techniques to help in solving forensic science problems. The early very successful applications included the determination of blood alcohol by direct injection of blood or serum, and the detection and identification of petroleum products in debris from arson cases in 1958/59. The breakthrough of GC in these areas and in drug analysis was an event of the 1960s and the 1970s. 

Microscopy was an established forensic tool by the 1890s. In toxicology, microscopy was being used to evaluate crystals characteristic of poisons, not unlike the way microcrystal tests in modern drug analysis are used. Microscopes were also employed in the analysis of fibers. To explore the principles of microscopy, the best place to begin is with the one instrument that symbolizes... 

Instrumental data for drug analysis / Teny Mills III and J. Conrad Roberson. — 2nd ed. p. cm. — (CRC series in forensic and police science)... 

Almost everyone engaged in the analysis of drug-related compounds, whether in the forensic, clinical, or university laboratory, has an accumulation of analytical data and thus has acquired a data base for the analysis of these compounds. Some of the information contained in Volume 5 of Instrumental Data for Drug Analysis is available in the literature however, there is no single source that contains timely, quality data of this type presented in a large, easily usable format. 

Technically, testing of hair for drugs is no more difficult or challenging than testing in many other "alternative" matrices (for example, liver, bone, etc.). In fact, the application of analytical methods and instrumental approaches are in most cases quite similar, regardless of the initial matrix. At present, hair analysis is routinely used as a tool for detection of drug use in forensic science, traffic medicine, occupational medicine, and clinical toxicology. 

Finally, the development of fast GC [61-63] and comprehensive two-dimensional GC (GC X GC) [64-66] address the continuous demand for increased speed and separation power in routine analysis. The former technique allows a dramatic reduction in analysis time without sacrificing resolution, while the latter offers a markedly increased separation power without altering the analysis time. A fast GC method for the analysis of cocaine and other drugs of forensic relevance has been published by Williams et al. [67]. They used a GC instrument in which the column was resistively heated at rates of up to 30°/s which allowed separation of 19 compounds within 1.5 min. A GC x GC time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) method has been proposed by Song et al. [68] for the analysis of a mixture of 78 drugs of interest, including cocaine and benztropine. 

See alsa Chromatography Multidimensional Techniques. Environmental Analysis. Extraction Solid-Phase Extraction. Food and Nutritional Analysis Sample Preparation Contaminants Pesticide Residues. Forensic Sciences Drug Screening in Sport Illicit Drugs. Herbicides. Liquid Chromatography Instrumentation Clinical Applications Food Applications. Mass Spectrometry Peptides and Proteins. Pesticides. Pharmaceutical Analysis Sample Preparation. Proteomics. Sample Handling Automated Sample Preparation. Water Analysis Organic Compounds. 

See also Blood and Plasma. Clinical Analysis Glucose. DNA Sequencing. Fluorescence Overview. Forensic Sciences Drug Screening in Sport. Microscopy Techniques Electron Microscopy Scanning Electron Microscopy Atomic Force and Scanning Tunneling Microscopy. Nucleic Acids Spectroscopic Methods. Raman Spectroscopy Instrumentation. Sensors Overview. 

MS compatible with sample preparation techniques used in these fields. For MALDI, the minimum amount of protein needed for a spectrum of high quality was reduced from 1 pmol in 1988 to a few femtomoles only about a year later. Today, in favorable cases, the level is now down in the low attomole range. Many other developments - both instrumental (see Chapter 2) as well as specific sample preparation recipes and assays (see other chapters of the book) - took place during the following decade, and the joint impact of aU of these together has today made MALDI-MS an indispensable tool not only in the Hfe sciences but also in polymer analysis, food sciences, pharmaceutical drug discovery, or forensic jurisprudence. 

Other uses of an IR microscope in forensic analysis include the examination of fibers, drugs, and traces of explosives. For example, oxidation of hair can occur chemically or by sunlight oxidation of cystine to cysteic acid can be seen in hair fibers by FTIR microscopy (Robotham and Izzia). Excellent examples in full color of FTIR imaging microscopy can be found on the websites of companies like PerkinElmer and Thermo Fisher Scientific. Our limitations in use of gray scale make many of the examples unsuited for reproduction in the text. A novel IR microscope combined with atomic force microscopy, the nanoIR platform from Anasys Instruments (www.anasysinstruments.com), permits nanoscale IR spectroscopy, AFM topography, nanoscale thermal analysis, and mechanical testing. 

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