Door: Waters Chromatography B.V. In this week's Application of the Week, we demonstrate the automated and fast method development capability of the ACQUITY UPLC System with 2-D Technology for the analysis of illicit drugs in urine.
The quantification limit for all illicit drugs was set at 1 ppb using a 1 mL urine sample. The micro extraction protocol offered the option to evaluate several elution parameters in a short time period. The elution optimization was completed within a 4 hrs hands-on work and the 2D LC results were analyzed using an over-night run multi-methods sample list (18 hrs).
With the extraction protocol optimized, the final protocol produced a clean extract in 15 minutes without any evaporation to dryness and reconstitution into initial mobile phase conditions. The reversed-phase/ion-exchange extraction protocol gave a 90% recovery average for the 12 illicit drugs in urine.
