title: Sensitive detection of black powder by stand-alone ion mobility spectrometer with chlorinated hydrocarbon modifiers in drift gas.
abstract: This paper introduces a simple method for selective and sensitive detection of black powder by adding chlorinated hydrocarbons in the drift gas instead of changing the structure of conventional ion mobility spectrometer (IMS). The function of chloride modifiers was to substitute Cl(-)(H₂O)n for [O₂⁻ (H₂O)(n)] in the drift region so as to avoid the overlap between O₂⁻ (H₂O)(n) and sulfur ion peaks. Among CH₂Cl₂, CHCl₃ and CCl₄, CCl₄ was chosen as the modifier due to the best peak-to-peak resolution and stability towards the fluctuation of modifier concentration. With 1.4 ppm CCl₄ as the modifier, the minimum detectable quantity of 0.1 ng for sulfur was achieved. Moreover, this method showed the ability for detection of common explosives at sub-nanogram level, such as black powder (BP), ammonium nitrate fuel oil (ANFO), 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), and pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN). In summary, this method requiring no configuration modification has high sensitivity and selectivity, and consumes trace amount of modifier. And these characteristics make it easy to be adopted in current deployed IMS to detect black powder explosives.
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China; Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xixi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Weiguo
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China; Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Qinghua
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chuang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China; Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Liying
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China; Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wen
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Tuanshuai
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Qu
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zhenxin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Kun
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jinghua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian 116023, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: hli@dicp.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Haiyang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
keywords: Black powder; Chlorinated hydrocarbons; Ion mobility spectrometer; Modifier