scholarly journals Analytical Approaches and Trends in the Determination of Psychoactive Drugs in Air

Sci ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Phillippa Zambas-Adams ◽  
Kevin C. Honeychurch

Understanding of the levels of psychoactive drugs in air is important for assessing both occupational and environmental exposure. Intelligence on the usage and manufacture of illegal drugs can also be gained. Environmental analysis and determination of air quality has recently expanded from its traditional focus to new pollutant categories that include illicit and psychoactive drugs. This is attributed to a greater part on the development of new, advanced techniques, such as liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS), allowing for the trace determination of such compounds down to the parts-per-trillion (ng/L) levels generally reported in air. Studies have also investigated the effects of firsthand and secondhand smoking of drugs, such as cocaine, cannabis and opium. Generally, these have shown secondhand smoke effects to be limited, apart from in the case of opium. Some studies have highlighted ill effects resulting through the exposure of vapors and dusts from the storage of drugs, but this has been shown to result from mould and other fungal contaminates. Investigations into the possible occupational exposures resulting from the use of anesthetic drugs in surgery and accident and emergency have focused on nitrous oxide, sevoflurane, methoxyflurane, isoflurane, propofol and fentanyl. This review focuses on developments and applications for the determination of psychoactive drugs in air.

Molecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (7) ◽  
pp. 1832
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Tsiantas ◽  
Thalia Tsiaka ◽  
Georgios Koutrotsios ◽  
Eleni Siapi ◽  
Georgios I. Zervakis ◽  
...  

In recent years, mushrooms have drawn the attention of agro-industries and food-industries as they were considered to be valuable natural sources of health promoting compounds such as β-glucans, ergothioneine, and lovastatin. The detection and quantification of such compounds by implementing reliable analytical approaches is of the utmost importance in order to adjust mushrooms’ cultivation conditions and maximize the production in different species. Toward this direction, the current study focuses on the comparison of ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) spectrometry and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) methods (a) by evaluating the content of ergothioneine and lovastatin in mushrooms and (b) by highlighting any possible substrate-based interferences that hinder the accurate determination of these two compounds in order to propose the technique-of-choice for a standardized bioactive compounds monitoring. For this purpose, mushrooms produced by three species (i.e., Agaricus bisporus, Pleurotus ostreatus, and P. citrinopileatus) on various cultivation substrates, namely wheat straw (WS), winery (grape marc (GM)), and olive oil (OL) by-products, were examined. Among the two applied techniques, the developed and validated LC–MS methods, exhibiting relatively short analysis time and higher resolution, emerge as the methods-of-choice for detecting ergothioneine and lovastatin in mushrooms. On the contrary, UV–Vis methods were hindered due to co-absorbance of different constituents, resulting in invalid results. Among the studied mushrooms, P. citrinopileatus contained the highest amount of ergothioneine (822.1 ± 20.6 mg kg−1 dry sample), whereas A. bisporus contained the highest amounts of lovastatin (1.39 ± 0.014 mg kg−1 dry sample). Regarding the effect of different cultivation substrates, mushrooms produced on OL and WS contained the highest amount of ergothioneine, while mushrooms deriving from GM-based substrates contained the highest amount of lovastatin.


Author(s):  
Hind Hadi ◽  
Gufran Salim

A simple, rapid and sensitive spectrophotmetric method for trace determination of salbutamol (SAL) in aqueous solution and in pharmaceutical preparations is described. The method is based on the diazotization coupling reaction of the intended compound with 4-amino benzoic acid (ABA) in alkaline medium to form an intense orange, water soluble dye that is stable and shows maximum absorption at 410 nm. A graph of absorbance versus concentration indicates that Beer’s law is obeyed over the concentration range of 0.5-30 ppm, with a molar absorbtivity 3.76×104 L.mol-1 .cm-1 depending on the concentration of SAL. The optimum conditions and stability of the colored product have been investigated and the method was applied successfully to the determination of SAL in dosage forms.


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