Citation

Aliaño-González MJ, Ferreiro-González M, Barbero GF, Palma M. Talanta 2019; 199: 189-194.

Affiliation

Department of Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, IVAGRO, ceiA3, University of Cadiz, 11510 Puerto Real, Cadiz, Spain. Electronic address: miguel.palma@uca.es.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.talanta.2019.02.063

PMID

30952245

Abstract

The destructive nature of fire together with a variety of interfering products from pyrolysis or background compounds among others, still offer a challenge on the proper identification of ignitable liquid residues (ILRs) in fire investigations. Nowadays, analysts use chromatography-mass spectrometry to try and classify ignitable liquids (IL) into one of the classes in the American Standards Testing Material method (ASTM E1618). In this study, an alternative approach is proposed to such analysis of fire debris. The proposed method would be based on ion mobility spectrometry sum spectrum (IMSSS) from headspace analysis, in combination with pattern recognition tools (Linear Discriminant Analysis, LDA). Four different substrates (pinewood, cork, paper, and cotton sheet) were burnt with and without different ILs (gasoline, diesel, ethanol, and paraffin). According to LDA, 100% of fire debris samples were correctly classified for presence/absence and type of IL. A characteristic fingerprint for each ILR was created for quick discrimination. These results demonstrate the potential of using IMSSS for a fast, objective and easy interpretation of fire debris data. In addition, ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) presents some advantages over traditional techniques such as its real-time monitoring capability and its capacity to work at atmospheric pressure, which allow the development of portable devices that would perform the analysis at the fire scene.

Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Characterization; Chemometrics; Fire debris; Ignitable liquids; Ion mobility spectrometry sum spectrum