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Cocaine on Money?. 90% of the nation's money supply is contaminated with cocaine We can test for this using GC/MS. Cocaine (C 17 H 21 O 4 N) is an alkaloid. Many drugs are alkaloids (Nitrogen containing bases).
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Cocaine on Money? • 90% of the nation's money supply is contaminated with cocaine • We can test for this using GC/MS
Cocaine (C17H21O4N) is an alkaloid • Many drugs are alkaloids (Nitrogen containing bases). • these drugs are available as an acid salt (such as the hydrochloride or sulfate), but the "free base" can be obtained by deprotonation. More soluble in dichloromethane than in water or NaOH common alternative way of writing
Procedure • Roll up bill tightly and place in 10 mL vial • Add 8 mL 0.1 M HCl, cap tightly • Sonicate for 5 minutes • Remove bill with fingers or forceps, place on paper towel to dry. • Transfer liquid to 30 mL vial, add 1 mL of 1 M NaOH.
Procedure (cont'd) • Cap, shake, then open and check pH to ensure ≥ 10. • Add 6 mL of CH2Cl2, cap and shake. • Wait 5 minutes, to see if layers separate. • If not, add a few squirts of H2O and/or DCM from pipette to see if separation. • Take out bottom layer with pipette, put in new 10 mL vial.
Procedure (cont'd) • Dry by adding anhydrous Na2SO4, take off DCM with pipette into new vial. • Blow air genly on resulting solution and evaporate to 0.2 mL or so. • Cap tightly when finished (careful if holding in hand, heat will evaporate)! • Inject 3 µL into GC/MS using method cocaine.m
Data Treatment • Perform ion-extraction of chromatogram for molar mass of cocaine, ID peak and retention time • Identify cocaine peak, go back to original chromatogram, get mass spectrum of peak at that retention time (subtract background if necessary), print chromatogram & MS • Check match with library
Writeup • Objective • Procedure summary • Results • Chromatogram and mass spectrum of cocaine with peak identified • Class data (which groups ID's cocaine, which didn't and type of money [denomination, country of origin] involved)
Writeup • Discussion/Conclusion – answer the following questions: • 1. Were you able to identify cocaine in your sample? How good a match did you get? Explain. • 2. What percentages of the US currency overall contained cocaine? Was there a difference in denomination? Was there a difference between US and foreign currencies? • 3. How could you quantitate the amount of cocaine each bill if you wanted to? explain. • 4 Any changes/improvements? • 5 Attach copy of your lab notebook
Although mass spectroscopy allows us to get atomic (or molecular) masses, we won’toften be dealing with individual atoms or molecules. A much more way to deal with chemical amounts of substances is…..