Pittcon 2024: UHPLC-PDA To Analyze Decomposition of Heroin Samples

During a lecture at Pittcon in San Diego, California, Alyssa Sanchez, a Ph.D student at Florida International University, spoke about tracking the decomposition kinetics for the geographic profiling of heroin.

Heroin is a schedule I opiate that is extracted from certain poppy plants. It has played a significant role in the opioid epidemic in the United States. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) field divisions seized 6,951 kg of heroin in 2019, a 30% increase from 2018, according to the National Drug Assessment report.

The purpose of Sanchez’s experiment was to mimic the conditions that heroin may be put under with illicit producers. Mimicking these conditions, she states, can help better determine how different environments impact the drug.

“They're not in a controlled lab environment,” she said. “They're just producing that packaging them probably in any plastic bag and whatever environment they're in, depending on the region.”

Heroin often comes into the United States from Mexico, South America, Southeast Asia, and Southwest Asia. Sanchez and her colleagues analyzed samples from each location to better understand its decomposition process.

“The goal of this research is to be able to mimic tracking and storage conditions,” said Sanchez, speaking at Pittcon 2024 in San Diego, California. “This will help us understand the purity and potency in heroin markets.”

To analyze the samples, Sanchez used ultrahigh-pressure liquid chromatography photo diode array (UHPLC-PDA). Then decomposition was simulated using an environmental chamber to tract the relative kinetics of decomposition to O3-, O6-MAM and morphine. Previous studies have used gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to analyze heroin samples, Sanchez said. However, GC requires volatilization, Sanchez said, which can decompose the samples and can make it challenging to tell if the decomposition is because of the environment or the technique.

“We can't be sure that it's always due to the GC or if it was due to the actual experiment,” she said. Sanchez’s team weighed samples of heroin and placed them inside a chamber where the humidity and temperature can be controlled. The scientists found that decomposition of various samples was accelerated at temperatures ranging from 45–75 °C and relative humidity ranging from 50–70%. The results showed that some samples with lower initial quantities of O6-MAM and morphine are relatively stable, others decompose at elevated temperature and humidity.