응용 분야 및 기법

Psychoactive gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) and its prodrug gamma-butyrolactone (GBL) are substances that are increasingly abused as date-rape and recreational (party) drugs. Since the non-controlled GBL converts into the illicit GHB both in-vivo and in-vitro, their legal distinction is of crucial importance.For the forensic determination of illegally added GHB and GBL in commonly consumed beverages, this work presents a simple and sensitive method that employs direct-injection ion chromatography combined with spectrophotometric detection. The method allows to trace GHB-GLB interconversion, whether in vivo or in vitro lactone cleavage or intramolecular GHB esterification, and thus complies with pertinent requirements of law enforcement agencies.

Boehm titration is a quantitative analysis of functional groups on the surface of carbon materials based on their reactions with basic solutions of NaHCO3 (pKa = 6.4), Na2CO3 (pKa = 10.3), and NaOH (pKa = 15.7). This is a cost-efficient method that gives absolute values with high precision of the accessible, mainly oxygen-containing functional groups on the surface. Originally, Boehm titration was developed for carbon materials like conductive carbon black (CCB), activated carbon, porous carbon, and graphite. Modern carbon-based materials like graphene, graphene oxide (GO), or carbon nanotubes can also be analyzed this way.

Determination of ß-propiolactone in vaccine.

Determination of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in vitamin capsules after sample digestion.