This article, prepared by the University of Antwerp (UA) and the National Institute for Criminalistics and Criminology (NICC), presents an electrochemical device that uses affordable screen-printed electrodes for the electrochemical profiling of several illicit drugs by square-wave voltammetry (SWV). The identification of the illicit compound is based on the oxidation potential of the analyte.
The examination of 48 confiscated samples with the electrochemical device, a portable Raman spectrometer, and a compact ATR-FTIR spectrometer showed an outstanding performance of the electrochemical device in front of the rest, concluding that it is a promising alternative to current rapid and on-site methods for the detection of illicit drugs at border and coast controls.
This article has been published in Chemosensors and can be found here.