In a court case involving the possession of an illegal drug, the prosecution sho
ID: 801500 • Letter: I
Question
In a court case involving the possession of an illegal drug, the prosecution showed that GC analysis of the material gave a retention time that match that of a known illegal drug chromatographed under identical conditions. The defense argued that of over one million organic compounds, several compounds would be likely to have the same retention time as the drug.
a. Suggest an analytical procedure for a more certain identification of the substance.
b. Justify your answer and explain in details of the methods.
c. Find a journal that reports this situation and write a brief description of the methods involved.
Explanation / Answer
a. The procedure used curently is Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectometry. In this procedure, we connect a mass spectrometer to the chromatograph, thus the peaks of the analytes also helps to correspond its exact structure.
b. By identifying the molecular weight of the compound, the mass spectrometer removes the ambiguity involved with gas chromatography, and thus is an efficient process.
c. http://www.scientific.org/tutorials/articles/gcms.html
This will help explain it better