Detection of Primary and Secondary Explosives Using Infrared Spectroscopy and Chemometrics

Published in: Global Partnerships for Development and Engineering Education: Proceedings of the 15th LACCEI International Multi-Conference for Engineering, Education and Technology
Date of Conference: July 19-21, 2017
Location of Conference: Boca Raton, FL, United States
Authors: John R Castro-Suarez, (Fundación Tecnológica Antonio de Arevalo, CO)
Full Paper: #81

Abstract:

The scientific community has an urgent need to develop accurate and rapid methods necessary for the solution of national and international problems for the detection and identification of chemical substances, which by anthropogenic uses that are malicious can have an adverse effect on living beings and public - private property in general. These substances of interest can be highly energetic materials such as explosives. A system for detecting explosives (2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), aliphatic nitrates such as pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), and aliphatic nitramines such as cyclotrimethylentrinitramine (RDX)) based on infrared spectroscopy (IRS) was used to record spectral signals in the middle infrared of highly energetic materials deposited on suitcases of trip, cardboard and wood. Detection of gaseous TATP using IRS by quantum cascade laser (QCL) and 2.4 DNT using TLC-QCL were also carried out. Infrared vibrational spectra of explosives were acquired using quantum cascade laser spectroscopy. Spectral similarities in a multivariate dataset allowed the identification of explosives using two chemometrics algorithms: Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Partial Least Squares (PLS-DA) Discriminant Analysis. The results show that the infrared vibrational technique used in this study may be useful for the detection of primary and secondary explosives in the types of real world substrates studied.