Confirmation and Analysis of Fentanyl and Its Analogues Without the Standards

In recent years, the number of controlled fentanyl species has increased gradually, and up to now, the number of controlled fentanyl species increased to twenty-seven. Since fentanyl standards are difficult to obtain, there are only several kinds of controlled fentanyl species involved in the literature, and the analysis of all 27 controlled fentanyl species have not been reported in the literature. Therefore, it is of great significance to establish a method for the rapid screening and confirmation of all 27 controlled fentanyl species without the use of standards. In this paper, an analytical method for the rapid screening and confirmation of 27 controlled fentanyl substances without the use of standards was established. Suspected samples were rapidly screened by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography/Orbitrap high resolution mass spectrometry (UPLC/Orbitrap HRMS). Qualitative identification was performed through the quasi-molecular ion accurate masses of target compounds. Confirmation was carried out by secondary ion segments. It is the first time that all of 27 controlled fentanyl substances was tested. The proposed method was simple, rapid and accurate, applicable for the rapid screening and confirmation of 27 controlled fentanyl substances without standards