Nontarget screening of production waste samples from Leuckart amphetamine synthesis using liquid chromatography ‐ high‐resolution mass spectrometry as a complementary method to GC‐MS impurity profiling

The established approaches of suspect and nontarget screening (NTS) using liquid chromatography-high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) are usually applied in the field of environmental and bioanalytical analysis. Herein, these approaches were employed on a forensic-toxicological application by analyzing different production waste samples from controlled amphetamine synthesis via Leuckart route to evaluate the suitability of this methodology for identification of route-specific organic substances in such waste samples. For analysis, two complementary LC techniques were used to cover a broad polarity spectrum. After data processing and peak picking using the enviMass software and further manual data restriction, 17 features were tentatively identified as suspects, three of which were subsequently identified with reference substances. All suspects had been previously identified in studies, in which gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was successfully applied for synthesis marker assessment in waste and amphetamine samples. Remaining features with high signal intensity and assigned sum formula were selected for the attempt of structure elucidation. Seven potential synthesis markers were tentatively identified, which were not yet reported, except the sum formula of one compound, and which were partly also detected in real case waste samples afterward. The innovative application of the NTS approach using LC-HRMS for the analysis of aqueous amphetamine synthesis waste samples showed its suitability as extension to GC-MS analysis as it was possible to successfully identify seven new potential marker compounds, which are specific either for the conversion of the pre-precursors α-phenylacetoacetonitrile and α-phenylacetoacetamide to benzyl methyl ketone or for the subsequent Leuckart synthesis route after their conversion.