Voltammetric determination of Δ9 -THC in glassy carbon electrode: An important contribution to forensic electroanalysis

• Autor(a) principal: Saczk, Adelir Aparecida
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: Balbino, Marco Antonio, Menezes, Matheus Manoel Teles de, Eleotério, Izabel Cristina, Okumura, Leonardo Luiz, Tristão, Heloı́sa Maria, Oliveira, Marcelo Firmino de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: LOCUS Repositório Institucional da UFV
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2012.03.020; http://www.locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/21705
• topic: Tetrahydrocannabinol; Forensic electroanalysis; Voltammetry; Criminalistics; Hemp; Hashish

A new voltammetric method for the determination of Δ^9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ^9-THC) is described. The voltammetric experiments were accomplished in N-N dimethylformamide/water (9:1, v/v), using tetrabutylammonium tetrafluoroborate (TBATFB) 0.1 mol/L as supporting electrolyte and a glassy carbon disk electrode as the working electrode. The anodic peak current was observed at 0.0 V (vs. Ag/AgCl) after a 30 s pre-concentration step under an applied potential of −1.2 V (vs. Ag/AgCl). A linear dependence of Δ^9-THC detection was obtained in the concentration range 2.4–11.3 ng/mL, with a linear correlation coefficient of 0.999 and a detection limit of 0.34 ng/mL. The voltammetric method was used to measure the content of Δ^9-THC in samples (hemp and hashish) confiscated by the police. The elimination of chemical interferences from the samples was promptly achieved through prior purification using the TLC technique, by employing methanol/water (4:1, v/v) as the mobile phase. The results showed excellent correlation with results attained by HPLC.