Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is about 100 times more potent than morphine and has helped fuel an increase in overdose deaths in the country.
It is being mixed with other drugs to increase the potency of those drugs by drug dealers.
Dr. Wenting Shao, a postdoctoral associate who is a lead researcher on the team said, “We’re working with really small amount of fentanyl because our sensors are really sensitive.”
The team’s research was recently published in the journal Small.
The paper’s abstract section reads, in part: “The surge in overdose fatalities, particularly due to illicitly manufactured fentanyl and its contamination of street drugs, emphasizes the urgency for drug-testing technologies that can quickly and accurately identify fentanyl from other drugs and quantify trace amounts of fentanyl.”
Shao explained that the sensor, similar to one the team developed to detect COVID-19 antigens, uses carbon nanotubes and gold nanoparticles to tell fentanyl apart from other opioids.
The fentanyl sensor detects the opioid on the femtomolar scale, which is 10-15 moles per liter. Shao said, “We can use our sensor technology to detect this trace amount of fentanyl.”
She explained that while the project is a while away from commercialization, she would like to see it used by law enforcement agencies in the future.