Analysis and characterization of the novel psychoactive drug 4-chloromethcathinone (clephedrone)

•Presentation of a novel psychoactive compound named 4-chloromethcathinone.•Identity was checked by GC/MS and NMR.•Chiral separation was performed with GC/MS and CE. Novel psychoactive drugs, such as amphetamine-, cathinone-, benzofury- and tryptamine derivatives, gained high popularity on the global drug market in the last years. These drugs are sold via the Internet as for example “research chemicals”, “room odorizers” or “lawn fertilizers” by different online suppliers. They are also known as “Legal Highs“, among them, cathinone derivatives play an important role. Well known substituted cathinone derivatives are mephedrone, brephedrone and flephedrone. Since a couple of weeks, a chlorine substituted methcathinone derivative, namely clephedrone (4-chloromethcathinone), is commercially available via the Internet from www.deboralabs.com. The goal of this study was to confirm identity of this substance, which was done successfully by GC–MS and NMR. Since all cathinone derivatives are chiral, it was found out, whether the purchased sample was present as a racemic mixture. For this purpose, methods for enantioseparation by GC and CE were developed and applied successfully. In case of CE a chiral selector was added, whereas chiral separation with GC–MS was done indirectly, after derivatization of clephedrone with trifluoroacetyl-l-prolyl chloride.