A simple electrochemical approach for the rapid determination of cannabinoid designer drug ADB‐BUTINACA

Abstract

AbstractThis work reports, for the first time, a simple, rapid and sensitive square‐wave voltammetric method for the determination of ADB‐BUTINACA, which is currently one the most prevalent synthetic cannabinoids on the drug market in the European Union. The method is based on the direct electrochemical oxidation of ADB‐BUTINACA at a modification‐free boron‐doped diamond electrode in aqueous electrolyte solution. Studies indicated that the oxidation of ADB‐BUTINACA is pH‐independent, irreversible and controlled by diffusion. The best SWV response for ADB‐BUTINACA was obtained in 0.1 mol dm−3 KNO3 buffered to pH 3, at a frequency of 100 Hz, a step potential of 2 mV and an amplitude of 50 mV. Under these conditions, the linear response for ADB‐BUTINACA was obtained in the concentration range of 1.1–104 μmol dm−3, and calculated LOD and LOQ were 0.83 and 2.50 μmol dm−3, respectively. The peak current based intra‐ and inter‐day precision values were 2.9 and 4.8 %, respectively. The spike‐recovery results in e‐liquid samples ranged between 92 and 104 %, confirming the applicability and good performance of the proposed method.