Novel technique for the combined recovery, extraction and clean-up of forensic organic and inorganic trace explosives samples

This paper describes a simple processing and analysis scheme for explosives trace swab samples which deals both with organic and inorganic materials. Swabs, wetted with ethanol or ethanol/water mixture, were extracted with et hanol/water mixture. The extract was passed directly through a simple colum n containing an acrylonitrile/styrene copolymer adsorbent. The adsorbent re tained common organic explosives, which were recovered with an efficiency o f 30-50% as a relatively clean ethyl acetate solution. The concentrated eth yl acetate eluate was analysed using gas chromatography with chemiluminesce nce or mass spectrometric detection. The unretained inorganic ions and suga rs, which were recovered with generally high efficiency as an ethanol/water solution, could be directly analysed using ion chromatography and/or capil lary electrophoresis. Minor difficulties encountered in the analysis of sug ars, fluoride and phosphate were examined.