Citation

González-Méndez R, Mayhew CA. J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. 2019; 30(4): 615-624.

Affiliation

Institut für Atemgasanalytik, Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Rathausplatz 4, A-6850, Dornbirn, Austria.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1007/s13361-018-02130-1

PMID

30761477

Abstract

Analysis of smokeless powders is of interest from forensics and security perspectives. This article reports the detection of smokeless powder organic additives (in their pre-detonation condition), namely the stabiliser diphenylamine and its derivatives 2-nitrodiphenylamine and 4-nitrodiphenylamine, and the additives (used both as stabilisers and plasticisers) methyl centralite and ethyl centralite, by means of swab sampling followed by thermal desorption and direct injection soft chemical ionisation-mass spectrometry. Investigations on the product ions resulting from the reactions of the reagent ions H₃O⁺ and O₂⁺ with additives as a function of reduced electric field are reported. The method was comprehensively evaluated in terms of linearity, sensitivity and precision. For H₃O⁺, the limits of detection (LoD) are in the range of 41-88 pg of additive, for which the accuracy varied between 1.5 and 3.2%, precision varied between 3.7 and 7.3% and linearity showed R² ≥ 0.9991. For O₂⁺, LoD are in the range of 72 to 1.4 ng, with an accuracy of between 2.8 and 4.9% and a precision between 4.5 and 8.6% and R² ≥ 0.9914. The validated methodology was applied to the analysis of commercial pre-blast gun powders from different manufacturers. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.

Language: en

Keywords

PTR-MS; Proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry; SCIMS; Smokeless powder additives; Smokeless powders; Soft chemical ionisation-mass spectrometry