Enantioseparation of 3-chloromethcathinone by liquid chromatography at the milligram scale
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48797/sl.2025.370Keywords:
PosterAbstract
Background: The most prominent synthetic cathinone (SCAT) is 3-chloromethcathinone (3-CMC), accounting for 34% and 63.41% of the total seized new psychoactive substances (NPS) in Europe in 2021 and 2022, respectively [1, 2]. Over the latest years, since the first identification on the European drug market in September 2014 in Sweden, 3-CMC has gained significant popularity among the younger drug users [3]. Moreover, 3-CMC is chiral and its enantiomers can show different biological activity, highlighting the importance of the enantioselectivity studies in clinical, forensic and ecotoxicological context. Objective: The aim of this study was to optimize a chromatographic method for the enantiomeric separation of 3-CMC at the milligram scale for further use in in vitro and ecotoxicity assessments. Methods: The enantioseparation as well as the enantiomeric purity evaluation of the 3-CMC were performed by liquid chromatography coupled to the ultraviolet-visible detector (UV/Vis), using a CHIRALPAK® AD-H 10 x 250 mm, 5 μm, a semi-preparative column. A Dionex Ultimate 3000 automated fraction collector was used for fractions collection. Data was analyzed by Chromeleon 7.0 software. For method conditions optimization, a solution at 100 μg mL-1 of 3-CMC in ethanol with diethylamine was used. Results: The optimized method allowed the separation of the enantiomers of 3-CMC at final concentration of 3.7 mg mL-1, with an enantiomeric purity of 98 % and 95 % for the first and second eluted enantiomer, respectively. The determination of the absolute configuration of the enantiomers is ongoing by electronic circular dichroism. Conclusions: The isolated enantiomers will be used for the enantioselective evaluation of the 3-CMC ecotoxicity. The determination of the absolute configuration of the enantiomers will enable correlating the ecotoxicity of each enantiomer.
References
1. EMCDDA, European Drug Report 2023: Trends and Developments, 2023.
2. EMCDDA, New psychoactive substances – The current situation in Europe (European Drug Report 2024, 2024).
3. EMCDDA, Report on the risk assessment of 1-(3-chlorophenyl)-2-(methylamino)propan-1-one (3-chloromethcathinone, 3-CMC). 2022, doi: 10.2810/671114.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Ivan Langa , Cláudia Ribeiro , Virgínia Gonçalves , Diana Dias-da-Silva , Sara Cravo, Maria Tiritan

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
In Scientific Letters, articles are published under a CC-BY license (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License), the most open license available. The users can share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially), as long as they give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made (read the full text of the license terms and conditions of use).
The author is the owner of the copyright.