QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS OF THERMOSTABLE EXPLOSIVE COMPOUNDS BY COMBINEDLIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY TANDEM MASS-SPECTROMETRY

A method for quantitative determination of thermostable explosive comp ounds is described. This method uses a Perkin Elmer Sciex API III trip le-quadrupole mass spectrometer equipped with an atmospheric-pressure ion source, as a detector for liquid chromatography. The explosives we re dissolved in dimethylformamide and the quantitative analysis was pe rformed by combined liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry usi ng a phenyl column. Selected reaction monitoring experiments were perf ormed by setting the first quadrupole to pass the [M-H](-) or [M+aceta te](-) ions of a selected explosive, while simultaneously setting the third quadrupole to pass its most characteristic fragment ion. An exte nsive statistical analysis of results was carried out, which showed a linear response between 0.8 ng and 12.8 ng for hexanitrostilbene, betw een 0.4 ng and 6.4 ng for hexanitrodiphenylamine, and between 0.1 ng a nd 1.6 ng for tetranitroacridone. Detection of these compounds with an intra-assay relative standard deviation (RSD) between 0.53% and 5.79% and an inter-assay RSD between 0,08% and 6.61% was obtained with this method. Accuracy, expressed as percentage error, was always better th an 7%.