A Rapid Differentiation of Ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine by Differential Mobility Spectrometry

Abstract

The work deals with fast differentiation of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine using differential mobility spectrometry. Each target molecule appears at a specific compensation voltage under fixed radiofrequency voltage which enables differentiation of measured narcotics. Compensation voltage of product ion peak at fixed radiofrequency of 1480 V were -4.89 V for pseudoephedrine and -3.02 V for ephedrine. Calculation of specific alpha coefficients (α2 and α4) using averaging and least squares method to obtain alpha shapes of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine was performed. Differential mobility spectrometry has proved to be a useful analytical technique for differentiation of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine in 100 s.