Determination of Nitrate Carry-Over on Bytac(registered) Strips Via Capillary Electrophoresis

Abstract

Inorganic explosives including ammonium nitrate, urea nitrate, and ANFO are among the most common energetic materials used in home-made devices. The ability to detect these materials sensitively with low occurrences of false negatives and positives is of paramount importance. As new detection technologies are developed, the need to standardize procedures to evaluate these technologies is equally important. Most technologies include a sampling step; typically a substrate used to swipe a suspect surface. A key performance metric is the transfer efficiency of this sampling step. Capillary electrophoresis was used to quantify the nitrate ion on cardboard-back Teflon strip (Bytac(registered trademark) to establish the transfer efficiency for three inorganic explosives. These results indicate that transfer efficiency is analyte specific, dependent upon the amount of analyte present, and the mechanism of transfer.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 19, 2012
Accession Number
ADA556206

Entities

People

  • Adam Lubrano
  • Braden C. Giordano
  • Cameron Lindsay

Organizations

  • United States Naval Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter IED

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Ammonium Nitrate
  • Capillary Electrophoresis
  • Chemical Kinetics
  • Chemistry
  • Detection
  • Efficiency
  • Electrophoresis
  • Energetic Materials
  • Engineering
  • Explosives
  • Explosives Detection
  • Homeland Security
  • Materials
  • Military Research
  • Optical Materials
  • Rocket Oxidizers
  • Standards

Readers

  • Environmental Engineering
  • Plasma Physics.
  • Systems Analysis and Design