title: Direct mass spectrometric detection of trace explosives in soil samples.
abstract: The detection of explosives in soil is of great significance in public security programmes and environmental science. In the present work, a ppb-level method was established to directly detect the semi-volatile explosives, RDX and TNT, present in complex soil samples. The method used thermal sampling technique and a direct current atmospheric pressure glow discharge source mounted with a brass cylinder electrode (9 mm × 4.6 mm i.d./5.6 mm o.d.) to face the samples, requiring no sample pretreatment steps such as soil extraction (about ten hours). It was characterized by the merits of easy operation, high sensitivity and fast speed, and has been validated by real soil samples from various locations around a factory or firecracker releasing fields. It took only 5 min per sample, with the limit of detection down to 0.5 ppb (S/N = 3) trinitrohexahydro-1,3,5-triazine in soils heated at 170 °C. It is also extendable to the analysis of other volatile analytes.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Living Biosystems, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China.
authors.forename: Lipo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xin
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D002623:Chemistry Techniques, Analytical / Q000379:methods*; D002681:China; D053834:Explosive Agents / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry; D013058:Mass Spectrometry; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D053834:Explosive Agents; D012987:Soil