Drug Identification With Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry :: essays research papers

Drugs are practised everyday by people in galore(postnominal) different ways for many different reasons. Drug testing has frame a standard in pre-employment testing, because of the large-minded variety of drug use in todays society. Drugs tested for by a possible employer include cocaine (crack), Amphetamines (crystal), Opiates (codeine, morphine, heroin), PCP (phencyclidine), and Marijuana. Gas chromatography/ atomic pile spectrometry is used to test blur and urine seeks of possible drug abusers or job applicants, and it is the best method for the testing of drug use. Gas chromatography and bus spectrometry are dickens different methods for identifying chemical substance substances, and the two instruments take up be coupled unitedly to perform a highly complementary analytical function. The go down on chromatograph and the mass spectrometer have theories behind how their techniques work, and specific forensic applications for their orchestration. The history and sche me of the fluff chromatography started over forty years ago with the invention of the capillary tube column. The gas chromatograph offers rapid and very high-resolution separations of a very wide range of compounds, with the only restriction that the analyzed substance needs to have sufficient volatility. The theory behind the mass spectrometer is to use the digression in mass-to-charge ratio (m/e) of ionized atoms or molecules to separate them from each other. quid spectrometry is therefore useful for quantitation of atoms or molecules and also for determining chemical and structural information about molecules. Molecules have distinctive fragmentation patterns that stick out structural information to identify structural components. The combination of the gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer is very easy, because both instrument needs to be modified in excess and both are analyzed in the gas phase and have comparable sample levels and temperature ranges. The most importan t make of the tw o instruments being coupled is that they perform complementary analytical functions.The instrumentation of the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer is very complex. The instruments parts include an injector, a carrier gas, a column, a separator, an ionization source, mass separator, and an ion detector. The injector is located on the gas chromatograph and is where the sample gas is injected into the instrument to start the process. The sample gas is then mixed with a carrier gas, which is the mobile phase in gas chromatography. The mixture proceeds into the capillary column where the separation of the sample begins. The capillary column is 15 to 60 meters in length and .25 to