High-throughput screening of 311 new psychoactive substances and metabolites in wastewater by direct injection UPLC-MS/MS

The rapid global spread of new psychoactive substances (NPS) in recent years has become an issue in many countries. One emerging technology that can provide early warnings and assessments of drug situations is the monitoring of NPS in wastewater. In this study, we developed and optimized a high-throughput qualitative screening method based on direct injection that enabled the simultaneous detection of 311 NPS and metabolites (87 synthetic cannabinoids, 43 synthetic cathinones, 71 phenylethylamines, 10 tryptamines, 40 phencyclidines, 9 benzodiazepines, 38 fentanyls, and 13 piperazines) in municipal wastewater. The run time for drug detection was only 16 min, and the method was validated to perform well in terms of selectivity, limit of detection (LOD), recovery, and matrix effect. Overall, 95.8 % of the targets had an LOD ≤10 ng/L and the recoveries ranged from 71.01 % to 119.88 %. The method was validated on 976 real samples from a city in China, and 32 substances were detected, with the highest detection rate for ketamine. This study provides a simple and direct analytical method for wastewater monitoring, which will aid in combating drug-related crime and maintaining social stability as new NPS continue to enter global markets.