Quantifying the effectiveness of cleaning agents at removing drugs from laboratory benches and floor tiles

Abstract

Understanding the effectiveness of laboratory and in-field cleaning methods for drugs is growing in importance as drug analysts, crime scene technicians, and hazardous materials response teams encounter traditional drugs, opioids, and novel substances with increasing regularity. While previous work has evaluated cleaning methods qualitatively, the quantitative effectiveness of cleaning agents in removing drugs from surfaces has received comparatively little attention. The goal of this work is to establish quantitative values for the effectiveness of cleaning agents in the removal of drugs from laboratory and first responder scenarios by investigating drug removal in particulate and residue form from laboratory benches and ceramic floor tiles. The cleaning techniques studied here include methanol, soap and water, OxiClean™, adhesive and methanol, and Dahlgren Decon. The removal of particulate drugs obtained from adjudicated casework was tested on a laboratory bench and ceramic floor tile; drug residue removal was tested on a laboratory bench. All cleaning agents had greater than 97% removal efficiency for both powders and residues off laboratory benches. Additional experiments completed with Dalhgren Decon and OxiClean™ on ceramic floor tiles, for the first responder scenario, found intact opioids could be recovered from surfaces and from within the cleaning solutions even after thirty minutes of interaction time. Solution-phase studies quantified the extent of degradation of opioids by these cleaning agents. The results from these experiments show that performance of typical cleaning agents is sufficient in the removal of drugs from surfaces, though additional studies to determine optimal methods of implementation are required.