In this issue
Law enforcement agents are seeing a dizzying array of structurally similar drugs that challenge existing rapid screening and presumptive testing methodologies. Current methods can lack specificity for preliminary identification of illicit drugs, demonstrating the need for time-sensitive, rapid screening methods with increased structure selectivity and high discriminating power to help identify the assortment of designer drugs. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy offers a solution to this challenge by providing structure sensitivity and high discriminating power.
The compound 2H,3H-decafluoropentane, C5H2F10, is a highly fluorinated hydrocarbon representative of a class of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) specialty fluids. It is sold under the trade name DuPont™ Vertrel™ XF and is a primary component of the Vertrel™ family of specialty fluids sold by DuPont™.
High resolution 1H (82 MHz) and 19F (77 MHz) spectra were acquired using the Thermo Scientific picoSpin 80 NMR spectrometer.