Atmospheric pressure thermal desorption chemical ionization mass spectrometry for ultra-sensitive explosive detection

Juha Kangasluoma*, Jyri Mikkilä, Verner Hemmilä, Oskari Kausiala, Jani Hakala, Evgenia Iakovleva, Paxton Juuti, Mikko Sipilä, Heikki Junninen, H. J. Jost, Aleksei Shcherbinin

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Illegal explosives are a threat to aviation, transport sector, critical infrastructure and generally to public safety. Their detection requires extremely sensitive instruments with efficient workflows that allow large throughput of items. In this study, we built a trace explosives detection instrument that requires minimal sample treatment and reaches ultra-low picogram level detection limits for many common explosives. The instrument is based on thermal desorption of filters, which allows analysis of liquid and solid phase samples, and subsequent selective atmospheric pressure chemical ionization and detection with a mass spectrometer. We performed experiments to scope the optimal ionization chemistry for the system and selected Br as the reagent ion, and measured the limit of detection for 14 different explosives that were generally in the picogram range. Finally, we demonstrate the usability of the system by sampling air to a filter from a storage room known to contain explosives, from which we detect four different explosives.

Original languageEnglish
Article number123653
JournalTalanta
Volume249
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2022
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

This work was funded by Business Finland (3920/31/2016 Karsa Automated Explosives Trace Detector (KAETD)) and the Academy of Finland (1325656, 346370). We thank Forcit Group for letting us collect samples from the explosive storages. M. Sipilä acknowledges Academy of Finland (296628) and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (GASPARCON, grant agreement no. 714621).

Keywords

  • Chemical ionization mass spectrometry
  • Explosives
  • Screening
  • Chemical Phenomena
  • Mass Spectrometry/methods
  • Indicators and Reagents
  • Atmospheric Pressure
  • Explosive Agents/analysis

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