Impurity profiling of drug seizures is a scientific approach employed to understand drug trafficking networks thus has
becoming increasingly important in criminal investigation. This paper presents the feasibility of using the Collaborative
Harmonisation of Methods for the Profiling of AmphetamineType Stimulants (CHAMP) established by the European
Commission authority for impurity profiling of amphetamine and methamphetamine samples. Both drugs were analysed
using similar extraction procedure and analytical conditions. The impurities were extracted from an alkaline buffer
solution (pH8.1) using toluene prior to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analyses. The results showed
that the reproducibility of the method for detecting amphetamine and methamphetamine ranged between 7.4-8.9 and
6.2-8.4 %RSD, respectively. Identification of impurities was performed by referencing against the available MS databases
as well as to previous reported impurity profiling studies. Phenyl-2-propanone (P2P), also known as benzyl-methylketone
(BMK), as well as other specific impurities such as 4-methyl-5-phenylpyrimidine, bis-(1-phynelisopropyl) amine,
N-formylamphetamine and N,N-di (b-phenylisopropyl) amines were identified in the amphetamine samples, indicating
Leuckart’s pathway as the route of synthesis. Because P2P was also detected in the methamphetamine samples, the
possible route of synthesis of the methamphetamine samples being Leuckart’s, nitrostyrene synthesis or reductive
amination could not be ruled out.
Introduction: Accelerants and fabrics are commonly used to spread fire attributable to their highly flammable prop- erties. Hence, having the ability to discriminate the different types of accelerants on various types of fabrics after fire and/or arson using the non-destructive Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) spec- troscopy coupled with chemometric techniques appears forensically relevant. Methods: Six types of fabrics viz. cotton, wool, silk, rayon, satin, and polyester, were burnt completely with RON95 and RON97 gasoline as well as diesel. Subsequently, the samples were analyzed by ATR-FTIR spectroscopy followed by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) for discriminating the different types of accelerants on such burned fabrics. Results: RON95 showed the fastest rate of burning on all fabric types. Results also revealed that while wool had the slowest burning rate for all the three different accelerants, polyester, cotton, and satin demon- strated the highest rate of burning in RON95, RON97, and diesel, respectively. FTIR spectra revealed the presence of alkane, alcohol, alkene, alkyne, aromatic, and amine compounds for all fabrics. The two dimensional PCA (PC1 versus PC2) demonstrated 71% of variance and it was improved by cross-validation through the three dimensional LDA technique with correct classification of 77.8%. Conclusion: ATR-FTIR spectroscopy coupled with chemometric techniques had enabled identification of the functional groups, as well as statistically supported discrimination of the different accelerants, a matter of relevance in forensic fire and arson investigations.