The Canine Accelerant Detection Association requires arson dogs to be able to detect gasoline, 50% evaporated gasoline and 75% evaporated gasoline (as well as other materials not relevant to this project).  Online sources describe 50% evaporated gasoline sample production through ambient evaporation, fractional distillation and/or rotary evaporation.  Considering a variability in preparation techniques, the inherent nebulous nature of the term ‘gasoline’ (a volatile, flammable liquid mixture of hydrocarbons, obtained from petroleum, and used as fuel for internal-combustion engines, as a solvent, etc.) and the variety of commercially available grade/mixtures of gasoline it is apparent that there could be a large variation in the composition of training samples.  Preliminary results of evaluation of these techniques revealed significantly different properties for the 50% evaporated samples depending on the amount of ethanol in the original gasoline.  Evaporation to 50% was shown to concentrate the ethanol present in the sample (85% ethanol in the original sample led to 93% ethanol in the 50% evaporated sample; 15% ethanol in the original sample led to 21% ethanol in the 50% evaporated sample).  These samples proved to be highly hygroscopic resulting in incorporation of water into the samples whenever the samples were in contact with ambient air.<br/>We are currently preparing additional samples at 25, 50 and 75% evaporation by the ambient evaporation and fractional distillation methods from all available types of gasoline.  Samples will be evaluated for density, ethanol content, vapor pressure and hygroscopic tendencies.<br/>

Evaluation and refinement of the procedure used to prepare training samples for arson detection K-9s

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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