Drug testing and analysisOct 1, 2026

Identification and Structure of ZC-B: A New Synthetic Psychedelic from Seized Illegal Capsules

Psychedelic Science Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Oct 2, 2026

Abstract

ZC-B, identified as a novel hallucinogenic substance, has a protonated molecule detected at m/z 272.0282.

ZC-B was found in capsules seized from drug-related cases and is characterized as an off-white powder.
Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis revealed fragment ions at m/z 242/244, 226/228, and 148.
The molecular ion was observed at low intensity, indicating its potential instability or low concentration.
No matching results were found in the NIST spectral library for the mass spectrometry data of ZC-B.
The substance was structurally identified as ZC-B succinate using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
The analytical methods developed may facilitate the detection of emerging new psychoactive substances.

Simplified

This publication describes the analytical characterization of ZC-B (3-(4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenyl)azetidine, also termed 2C-B-AZET), a novel hallucinogenic substance identified in capsules seized from drug-related cases. The off-white powder recovered from inside the capsules was used without further purification and systematically analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF-MS), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). Following GC-MS analysis, ZC-B exhibited characteristic fragment ions involving the bromine isotopes at m/z 242/244, m/z 226/228, and m/z 148. The molecular ion could only be observed at very low intensity. Under UHPLC-QTOF-MS/MS conditions, the protonated molecule was detected at m/z 272.0282. The predominant product ions in auto-MS/MS mode were m/z 228.9860 and 198.9752. A search of the mass spectrometry data against the NIST spectral library yielded no matching results. The off-white solid recovered from inside the capsules was directly characterized by NMR spectroscopy for full structural elucidation. Comparison with recent literature unambiguously identified the substance as ZC-B succinate. This established analytical framework was simple and well-suited for the qualitative detection of ZC-B in forensic drug seizures. Furthermore, it serves as a reference for the detection and identification of emerging new psychoactive substances (NPS).

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Identification and Structure of ZC-B: A New Synthetic Psychedelic from Seized Illegal Capsules

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