Foods and drinks have been adulterated with illicit drugs to facilitate criminal activities. Unfortunately, conventional analytical methods are incapable of rapidly characterizing these drugs in samples, as serious interferences from sample matrices must be removed through tedious and time-consuming pretreatment. Ambient ionization mass spectrometry (AMS) generally does not require sample pretreatment and is thus a suitable tool for directly and rapidly detecting illicit drugs in samples in different physical states. In this study, thermal desorption electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (TD-ESI/MS), an AMS technique, was utilized to efficiently characterize illicit drugs spiked in samples including drinks, powders, and jelly candies. To perform sensitive analysis, the mass analyzer was operated in multiple reaction monitoring mode to monitor the molecular and fragment ions of the target analytes. The time required to complete a typical TD-ESI/MS analysis was less than 30 s. The limits of detection (LODs) for illicit drugs were found to be 100 ppb in drinks, 100-1000 ppb in instant powders, and 1.3-6.5 ng/mm2 on stamp surfaces. FM2 and nitrazepam laced in the inner layer of a jelly candy were detected by TD-ESI/MS, showcasing the advantage of the technique for direct and rapid analysis as opposed to conventional methods.

中文翻译：

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使用热解吸电喷雾电离质谱法直接快速表征掺假样品中的非法药物

食品和饮料中掺入非法药物以助长犯罪活动。不幸的是，传统的分析方法无法快速表征样品中的这些药物，因为必须通过繁琐且耗时的预处理来去除样品基质中的严重干扰。环境电离质谱（AMS）通常不需要样品预处理，因此是直接快速检测不同物理状态样品中非法药物的合适工具。在本研究中，热解吸电喷雾电离质谱 (TD-ESI/MS) 是一种 AMS 技术，可用于有效表征饮料、粉末和果冻糖果等样品中添加的非法药物。要执行敏感分析，质谱仪以多反应监测模式运行，监测目标分析物的分子离子和碎片离子。完成典型的 TD-ESI/MS 分析所需的时间不到 30 秒。非法药物的检测限 (LOD) 在饮料中为 100 ppb，在速溶粉末中为 100-1000 ppb，在印章表面为 1.3-6.5 ng/mm2。通过 TD-ESI/MS 检测到果冻糖内层中的 FM2 和硝西泮，展示了与传统方法相比，该技术在直接和快速分析方面的优势。