Development of Ion‐selective Electrodes for Tropane, Atropine, and Scopolamine – A Concept for the Analysis of Tropane Alkaloids.

We present the development of novel ion‐selective electrodes for tropane, atropine, and scopolamine, as a general model for tropane alkaloids and drugs such as e. g. cocaine. These potentiometric sensors rely either on a metallocarborane or tetraphenylborate complex as recognition element and led to systems with a near‐Nernstian behaviour in the range of 10−5–10−2 mol/L and detection limits around 2 ⋅ 10−5 mol/L. Selectivity studies with commonly used drug additives (caffeine, phenacetin) and closely related tropane derivatives show very low influence of the additives and a structure dependent interference for the derivatives. Beside this, a hydrogel‐based concept with a similar performance was developed, which could be used for on‐site measurement of solid samples. The developed sensors therefore demonstrated their suitability and might be used to enable the development of portable sensor arrays for the quantification of a wide range of tropane alkaloids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]