THERMAL DECOMPOSITION APPROACH FOR PETN DETECTION IN IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICES

  • Unique Paper ID: 179451
  • Volume: 11
  • Issue: 12
  • PageNo: 7651-7660
  • Abstract:
  • Pentaerithytol tertranitrate (PETN) is a secondary high explosive primarily used for military and industrial applications. However, it also finds its way into illegally made or obtained Improvised Explosive Devices used for terrorist and Naxal activities. Forensic analysis becomes important in cases when explosions are suspected to be caused by PETN containing explosive compositions. Analysis of PETN is easy when methods such as Colour tests, Thin Layer Chromatography, HPLC, Infrared Spectroscopy, UV-Visible Spectroscopy are used. However analysis by techniques using high temperatures such as Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry does not yield results of great use as PETN is a thermally labile compound. Numerous previous works have developed methods on GC, MS and GC-MS systems which require special equipment and devices. Our work presents a method of detecting the presence of PETN using the CG-MS method with standard column and mass spectrometer parameters without using such special equipment and devices based on the study of breakdown products of intact PETN molecules.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2025 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{179451,
        author = {D Kumar and Prajakta Uday Kotawadekar},
        title = {THERMAL DECOMPOSITION APPROACH FOR PETN DETECTION IN IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICES},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {11},
        number = {12},
        pages = {7651-7660},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=179451},
        abstract = {Pentaerithytol tertranitrate (PETN) is a secondary high explosive primarily used for military and industrial applications. However, it also finds its way into illegally made or obtained Improvised Explosive Devices used for terrorist and Naxal activities. Forensic analysis becomes important in cases when explosions are suspected to be caused by PETN containing explosive compositions. Analysis of PETN is easy when methods such as Colour tests, Thin Layer Chromatography, HPLC, Infrared Spectroscopy, UV-Visible Spectroscopy are used. However analysis by techniques using high temperatures such as Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry does not yield results of great use as PETN is a thermally labile compound. Numerous previous works have developed methods on GC, MS and GC-MS systems which require special equipment and devices. Our work presents a method of detecting the presence of PETN using the CG-MS method with standard column and mass spectrometer parameters without using such special equipment and devices based on the study of breakdown products of intact PETN molecules.},
        keywords = {PETN, Secondary High Explosive, Gas Chromatography Mass spectrometry, Improvised explosives, Military Explosive.},
        month = {September},
        }

Cite This Article

  • ISSN: 2349-6002
  • Volume: 11
  • Issue: 12
  • PageNo: 7651-7660

THERMAL DECOMPOSITION APPROACH FOR PETN DETECTION IN IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICES

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