Determination of Ketamine in Human Urine by Gas Chromatography

Abstract

An analytical method using microwave assisted extraction-gas chromatography is developed for the determination of ketamine in human urine. For the detection of ketamine, urine samples are extracted on an microwave assisted extraction apparatus. Extracted calibration curve is linear from 0.5 mg/L to 100 mg/L for ketamine with correlation coefficients exceeding 0.999. The limit of detection is 0.2 mg/L for ketamine. The limit of quantitation is 0.5 mg/L for ketamine. The recoveries of ketamine are from 79.50 to 101.31 %. The intraday and interday run precisions (CV) for ketamine are less than 2.84 %. The analytical method is applied to five suspected urine samples and the concentration of ketamine is determined. Ketamine and its metabolite (norketamine) are confirmed by GC-MS. Microwave assisted extraction is simple and needs less organic solvent than liquid-liquid extraction and solid-phase extraction and gas chromatography can offer both qualitative and quantitative information for urinalysis of ketamine in forensic analysis.