Quantitative Analysis of NPS (New Psychoactive Substance) Containing α-PVP by Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART)-TOF-MS with Micro Syringe Injection

In recent years NPS abuse has become a serious social problem. To solve this problem the rapid analysis of drugs contained in NPS is required. In this study, a rapid and quantitative analysis that uses DART-TOF-MS was examined, in which a sample was injected directly into the ion source at atmospheric pressure. DART-TOF-MS with the conventional sample injection technique was not suitable for quantitative analysis because of the low reproducibility. Therefore, we developed a quantitative method with high-accuracy by introducing a micro syringe injection technique. Using alpha-PVP as the model compound and alpha-PBP as the internal standard, LOD was 0.03 mu g mL(-1), LOQ was 0.1 mu g mL(-1), and the calibration curve showed good linearity with the correlation coefficient of 0.999 in the range of 0.1 to 50 mu g ml(-1). alpha-PVP in liquid NPS was analyzed using the developed method and the conventional GC-MS method. The quantitative values obtained by the two methods were almost the same. On the basis of those results, the results suggest that the newly developed method enables simple, fast as well as high-accuracy quantitative analysis of a-PVP in liquid NPS.