Applications of Direct Injection Soft Chemical Ionisation-Mass Spectrometry for the Detection of Pre-blast Smokeless Powder Organic Additives

Analysis of smokeless powders is of interest from forensics and security perspectives. This article reports the detection of smokeless powder organic additives (in their pre-detonation condition), namely the stabiliser diphenylamine and its derivatives 2-nitrodiphenylamine and 4-nitrodiphenylamine, and the additives (used both as stabilisers and plasticisers) methyl centralite and ethyl centralite, by means of swab sampling followed by thermal desorption and direct injection soft chemical ionisation-mass spectrometry. Investigations on the product ions resulting from the reactions of the reagent ions H ₃ O ⁺ and O ₂ ⁺ with additives as a function of reduced electric field are reported. The method was comprehensively evaluated in terms of linearity, sensitivity and precision. For H ₃ O ⁺ , the limits of detection (LoD) are in the range of 41–88 pg of additive, for which the accuracy varied between 1.5 and 3.2%, precision varied between 3.7 and 7.3% and linearity showed R ² ≥ 0.9991. For O ₂ ⁺ , LoD are in the range of 72 to 1.4 ng, with an accuracy of between 2.8 and 4.9% and a precision between 4.5 and 8.6% and R ² ≥ 0.9914. The validated methodology was applied to the analysis of commercial pre-blast gun powders from different manufacturers. [Figure not available: see fulltext.].