Neutral desorption using a sealed enclosure to sample explosives on human skin for rapid detection by EESI-MS

Abstract

A novel air-tight neutral desorption enclosure has been fabricated to noninvasively sample low picograms of explosives 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX), octahydro-1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetraazocine (HMX), triacetone triperoxide (TATP), and nitroglycerin (NG) from human skin using a neutral nitrogen gas beam. Without further sample pretreatment, the explosive mixtures collected from the skin surface were directly transported by a nitrogen carrier gas over a 4-m distance for sensitive detection and rapid identification by extractive electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry.