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Title
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Electrochemical analysis of speedball-like polydrug samples
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Author
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Abstract
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| Increasing global production, trafficking and consumption of drugs of abuse cause an emerging threat to people’s health and safety. Electrochemical approaches have proven to be useful for on-site analysis of drugs of abuse. However, few attention has been focused on the analysis of polydrug samples, despite these samples causing severe health concerns, certainly when stimulants and depressants are combined, as is the case for Speedball, a mixture of cocaine and heroin. In this work, we provide solutions for the selective detection of cocaine (stimulant) in polydrug samples adulterated with heroin and codeine (depressants). The presence of either one of these compounds in cocaine street samples leads to an overlap with the cocaine signal in square-wave voltammetry measurements at unmodified carbon screen-printed electrodes, leading to inconclusive screening results in the field. The provided solutions to this problem consist of two parallel approaches: (i) cathodic pretreatment of the carbon screen-printed electrode surface prior to measurement in both alkaline and neutral conditions; (ii) electropolymerization of orthophenylenediamine on graphene modified carbon screen-printed electrodes prior to measurement in neutral conditions. Both strategies allow simultaneous detection of cocaine and heroin in speedball samples as well as simultaneous detection of cocaine and codeine. Implementing these strategies in portable devices holds great potential for significantly improved accuracy of on-site cocaine screening in polydrug samples. |
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Language
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English
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Source (journal)
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The analyst. - Cambridge, 1876, currens
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Publication
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Cambridge
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2020
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ISSN
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0003-2654
[print]
1364-5528
[online]
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DOI
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10.1039/D0AN01097A
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Volume/pages
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145
:18
(2020)
, p. 6091-6096
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ISI
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000568961600011
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Pubmed ID
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32840270
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Full text (Publisher's DOI)
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Full text (open access)
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