NCJ Number
207706
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 49 Issue: 6 Dated: November 2004 Pages: 1230-1236
Date Published
November 2004
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This study used a high performance liquid chromatography-atmospheric pressure chemical ionization-mass spectrometry(/mass spectrometry) (HPLC-APCI-MS(/MS) method to perform a trace analysis of the most commonly encountered peroxide explosives, i.e., hexamethylene-triperoxidediamine (HMTD) and triacetonetriperoxide (TATP).
Abstract
A description of the methods used addresses materials, preparation of samples, the instruments used, and the procedures of HPLC-APCI-MS(/MS) analysis. Using the latter procedures, HMTD and TATP were analyzed in the same run. Pseudo-molecular ions of the peroxides were obtained as base peak under the same condition. A series of product ions was produced from these pseudo-molecular ions ([HMTD-1]+ and [TATP + NH4]+) in the MS/MS analysis. The study also determined that a TATP molecular ion [TATP+H]+ can be observed with HPLC-MS/MS. The limit of detection for HMTD and TATP was 0.26 and 3.3 ng, respectively, on column by HPLC-MS in the full scan mode and 0.08 and 0.8, respectively, by HPLC-APCI-MS/MS in selected reaction monitoring (single mass unit) mode. The described method has successfully identified peroxides in the bulk solid state (powder sample) and in postblast extracts from a forensic case. For the postblast extracts, the use of tandem MS was necessary for the detection of the peroxide explosives. 3 tables, 6 figures, and 16 references