Assessment of Solvents for the Recovery of Nitroglycerine from Hands Using Cotton Swabs

Abstract

Eight solvents were compared for their relative efficiency in removing nitroglycerine from the hands of persons handling explosives. The amount of interfering material also removed from the hands by the cotton swabs and the stability of the nitroglycerine in the solvent used were also investigated. Aqueous solvents yielded the best recoveries, when the extracts were partially purified by thin-layer chromatography before analysis, but the explosive was degraded rapidly by microorganisms that grew in the solutions. Of the aqueous, organic, and polar solvents tested, ethanol was found to offer the most complete, consistent, and stable recovery.

Recent trends in organic gunshot residue analysis

“…The swabbing method requires the choice of a suitable solvent for the collection of GSR materials. Ethanol and isopropanol are mentioned as the best performing solvents [2,34,35]. Organic solvents are commonly used for the collection of explosives and associated materials.…”

Post-Blast Analysis of Hexamethylene Triperoxide Diamine using Liquid Chromatography-Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Ionization-Mass Spectrometry

“…In 1982, Twibell et al performed a study to evaluate the use of water and aqueous solvents for organic explosives extraction from cotton swabs and concluded that acetone was most effective, while water was nearly as effective [15]. Past studies have shown that water can be used effectively for the extraction of organic explosives from cotton swabs [16,17].…”

“…In addition, various injection volumes were evaluated to optimize both the chromatographic and mass spectral result. Several water:acetone ratios were tested based on the results of previous extraction studies [15][16][17]. A series of swabs were weighed, spiked with 10 μg of HMTD, and extracted with one milliliter of five different extraction solvents: 100% water, 90:10 water:acetone, 75:25 water:acetone, 50:50 water:acetone, and 100% acetone.…”

Optimisation of recovery protocols for double-base smokeless powder residues analysed by total vaporisation (TV) SPME/GC-MS

“…A number of studies have thus evaluated various swabbing materials, solvents or extraction procedures in the recovery of both organic and inorganic explosives [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. The findings of these studies have been varied, with the best swabbing media and wetting or extraction solvents often differing according to the recovery surface or target analytes utilised [15][16][17].…”