Profiling ephedrine/pseudoephedrine and methamphetamine synthesised from benzaldehyde, nitroethane and dimethyl carbonate

Abstract

In previous work, a novel pathway for the synthesis of ephedrine/pseudoephedrine and methamphetamine using the precursors benzaldehyde, nitroethane and dimethyl carbonate was investigated, and an impurity profile presented. This paper presents chiral and stable isotope ratios of ephedrine/pseudoephedrine and methamphetamine synthesised by this pathway. Based on the chiral profile and the more negative δ13C (avg. –33.2‰) and more positive δ2H values, it is possible to distinguish ephedrine/pseudoephedrine and methamphetamine prepared from this pathway from those of “fully synthetic”, “semi-synthetic” or “natural” origin. The more positive δ2H values of methamphetamine from this pathway allowed for differentiation from methamphetamine produced from phenyl-2-propanone. It was noted, however, that the use of stable isotope profiling would likely be limited when a benzaldehyde source having a negative δ2H value was used as a precursor. Furthermore, the stable isotope values alone could not be used to differentiate from methamphetamine prepared by the Akabori-Momotani reaction, highlighting the need for combination with impurity profiling.