Development of a Liquid Chromatography/Tandem Mass Spectrometry (Lc/Ms/Ms) Method for the Analysis of Peroxide Explosive Residues on Building Materials

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to develop and validate a method for the detection of low levels of HMTD extracted from building materials using liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). Method validation was performed to determine precision, accuracy, sensitivity, and selectivity. For each building material an extraction method was developed, and the percent of HMTD recovered through extraction was determined. Carpet, wood, concrete, and drywall samples were spiked with a known amount of HMTD analytical standard and the HMTD was then periodically extracted from each of the different materials and analyzed using LC/MS/MS. The amount of HMTD recovered from the building materials was then assessed to determine the degradation and recovery time of HMTD and establish which materials would most likely have detectable residues of the explosive in the event of an investigation.