Analysis of ecstasy tablets: comparison of reflectance and transmittance near infrared spectroscopy.

Calibration models for the quantitation of commonly used ecstasy substances have been developed using near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) in diffuse reflectance and in transmission mode by applying seized ecstasy tablets for model building and validation. The samples contained amphetamine, N-methyl-3,4-methylenedioxy-amphetamine (MDMA) and N-ethyl-3,4-methylenedioxy-amphetamine (MDE) in different concentrations. All tablets were analyzed using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with diode array detection as reference method.