Cooker, 2 pieces of cotton, and brown residue. Sample name given as 'Heroin'.

BTNX Fentanyl Test Strip (prior to sending in sample): Positive

Jul 21, 2021: Sample re-analyzed, Phenethyl-4-Fluoro-4-ANPP confirmed.

March 10, 2021: We have tentatively identified 9586-Unidentified-#3 (14 parts) as Phenethyl-4-Fluoro-4-ANPP. As far as we know, this chemical has never before been identified and is 'new in the literature'. The identification of this substance is based on extremely technical expert analytical chemistry. If you are a senior analytical chemist with expertise in fentanyl synthesis, please contact us to let us know what you think about this identification.

For everyone else in the world, we believe Phenethyl-4-Fluoro-4-ANPP is best thought of as a synthesis byproduct of fentanyl, not intentionally included by the manufacturer, that has no pharmacological effect, meaning it doesn't have any effect in humans at this dose level.

However, this identification must be considered tentative until a reference standard is available for us to compare to. We are now publishing this as our tentative identification, although we do not know of any other lab in the world that has identified this substance.

March 10, 2021: We have now tentatively identified 9586-Unidentified-#2 as Fluoro-norfentanyl, t-Boc. That is an extremely technical determination. The 't-boc' modification of Fluoro-norfentanyl is a synthesis byproduct caused by using a 'tert-butyloxycarbonyl' 'protecting' group, where a specific reactive chemical is added to a synthesis reaction to attach to a location on an intermediary chemical. But if the synthesis process has chemicals that are unintentionally included, the t-boc reaction can attach to the wrong substance and that resulting substance can remain in the final product. We believe this is the case with this substance.

We think that we will be able to confirm this identification in the next year. Check back in 2022! :]

March 11, 2021: We have now tentatively identified 9586-Unidentified-#1 (1 part, with an MS peak at mz 215) as 4-Fluoro-N-(2-phenylethyl)aniline (CAS # 220751-29-1). Our experts are unwilling to speculate exactly why this substance is present in this sample, but they describe the general issue:

This and other unusual substances detected in opioid and fentanyl samples are possible synthesis byproducts resulting from thermal, oxidative, or lumi (light) breakdown of one of the intermediate substances present during synthesis. Or such chemicals might arise from too much acid or base additions during synthesis.

previously designated as unidentified (in Dec 2020) and since identified:

9586-Unidentified-#1 (7.4 min): 1 part

9586-Unidentified-#2 (10 min): 2 parts

9586-Unidentified-#3 (13 min): 14 parts