CHARACTERIZATION OF EXPLOSIVES BY LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY MASS-SPECTROMETRY AND LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY TANDEM MASS-SPECTROMETRY USING ELECTROSPRAY-IONIZATION AND PARENT-ION SCANNING TECHNIQUES

Analytical techniques for the detection of small amounts of explosives (in the picogram range) are now involved in various application. Some of them concern soil, water and air monitoring in order to face envir onmental problems related to improper handling procedures either in st ocking or in wasting of the explosive products. Other areas are strict ly related to forensic analysis of samples coming either from explosio n areas where the matrix is various (metal, glass, wood, scraps), or f rom explosives transportation related to international terrorism. Gene rally speaking, for these applications the bulk of the matrix seriousl y interferes in the detection of the explosive analyte, which is usual ly present at trace levels. Unfortunately, despite some improvements, analytical techniques developed up today in this domain are still face d to two main constraints: the introduction of new products with unant icipated chemico-physical properties and the requirement of a routine and fast analytical method which can handle any matrix with a minimal clean-up and performing a sensitivity compatible either with the ever- decreasing demanded detection limit and with the ever-decreasing avail able specimen amount. These requirements can be fulfilled now by the n ew LC-MS and LC-MSMS techniques: mass spectrometry (MS) is likely an u niversal detector but even specific, especially when implemented in ta ndem MS (MSMS); LC is by far the most suitable technique to handle suc h a kind of compounds. Moreover, of a particular concern are some expl osives which are reported to be thermally stable but difficult to diss olve. Some of the experiments on characterization of explosives [Octag en (HMX), Ethyleneglycol dinitrate (EGDN), Exogen (RDX), Propanetriol trinitrate (NG), Trinitrotoluene (TNT), N-Methyl-N-tetranitrobenzenami ne (TETRYL), Dintrotoluene (DNT), Bis-(nitrooxy-methyl) propanediol di nitrate (PETN), hexanitrostilbene (HNS), Triazido-trinitrobenzene (TNT AB), Tetranitro-acridone (TENAC), Hexanitrodiphenylamine (HEXYL), Nitr oguanidine (NQ)] by LC-MS rand LC-MSMS with the API-IonSpray source an d using the Parent-Scan technique are presented.