Fentanyl Extraction and Analysis in Soil Using Automated QuEChERS

Introduction

The analysis of illicit drugs, such as fentanyl, in soil is of great interest. Fentanyl analysis can be used as an indirect assessment tool of drug consumption in a specific territory (air, water, soil, sediment) or can be useful to law enforcement (presence of a drug trafficking laboratory)1. For this project, the extraction of fentanyl in soil was the selected approach. The extraction method used is QuEChERS (Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe). However, the QuEChERS method is time-consuming. Thus, the objective of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of automating this method for the QuEChERS extraction of fentanyl from soil and proceed to the fast analysis in LDTD-MS/MS.

Presented at ASMS 2025.