U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

PUBLICATIONS

Quantifying Stability of Trace Explosives under Different Environmental Conditions

Published

Author(s)

Edward R. Sisco, Marcela N. Najarro, Daniel V. Samarov, Jeffrey A. Lawrence

Abstract

This work investigates the stability of trace deposits of six explosives (ETN, PETN, RDX, HMX, TNT, and Tetryl) to determine environmental stabilities and lifetimes. Explosives were inkjet printed directly onto PTFE coated fiberglass substrates and exposed to one of seven environmental conditions for 42 days. The remaining explosives were then quantified using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) to determine stability of the explosive as a function of time and environmental exposure. Stability was found to be exposure and compound dependent with lowest sample losses observed for HMX, RDX, and PETN while substantial and rapid losses were observed for ETN and TNT. The results of this work highlights the potential fate of explosive traces when exposed to various environments.
Citation
Talanta
Volume
165
Pub Type
Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2016.12.029

Keywords

Trace Explosives, Mass Spectrometry, Degradation, Stability, Quantification
Analytical chemistry

Citation

Sisco, E. , Najarro, M. , Samarov, D. and Lawrence, J. (2017), Quantifying Stability of Trace Explosives under Different Environmental Conditions, Talanta, [online], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2016.12.029 (Accessed December 4, 2024)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created April 1, 2017, Updated November 10, 2018