N,N-Dimethyltryptamine and dichloromethane: Rearrangement of quaternary ammonium salt product during GC–EI and CI-MS–MS analysis
Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis December 28, 2007 Simon D. Brandt, Cláudia P.B. Martins, Sally Freeman et al. 10 citations
DMT, a simple tryptamine with powerful psychoactive properties, reacts with dichloromethane during work-up or long-term storage, forming the quaternary ammonium salt N-chloromethyl-DMT chloride. Analysis of this side-product by gas chromatography ion trap mass spectrometry (GC-MS) yielded only degradation products, such as 3-(2-chloroethyl)indole and 2-methyltetrahydro-beta-carboline, while HPLC detected the original salt. Because GC-MS is standard for drug fingerprinting, the presence of these degradation products could lead to erroneous conclusions about the synthetic route of a DMT sample.