Heroin is an opioid drug made from morphine. Heroin is very addictive and causes significant health problems from an overdose. From ancient times, it has been a common practice that many illicit drugs such as heroin contain many other disturbances in addition to active ingredients that may cause major health consequences and premature death. A number of synthetic and natural opiate alkaloids are present in an illicit heroin sample along with many adulterants and diluents.

While examining anillicit heroin sample in laboratories, the main prerequisite is to detect the diacetylmorphine with complete conviction or to identify the presence of narcotic substances. As a preliminary examination, thin-layer chromatography (TLC) is the very common, convenient and rapid analysis method of separation and high performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) is used for identification that minimizes human error. Sophisticated instruments like UV, GC, and GC-MS, grants high accuracy and systematic outcome and are helpful in distinguishing compounds in the obscure sample.

The present study is conducted to compare and find the best solvent system of various chromatographic techniques for the separation of opium along with its alkaloids and also in crude opium samples. A solvent system Cyclohexane: benzene: diethyl amine (70:25:10) is best for separating diacetylmorphine from mono acetyl morphine and morphine.