The most recent <i>Census of Publicly Funded Forensic Crime Laboratories </i>reported that there were almost 4,000 cases that required analysis of explosive-related trace evidence backlogged at state and federal crime labs. This issue is due to the expensive equipment and highly trained personnel required for the current method of explosive analysis. The majority of local law enforcement agencies do not have enough incidents involving explosives to warrant expenditure on the necessary equipment and personnel, so when they do need explosive analysis done, the samples are sent to state and federal forensic labs where they often become backlogged. The goal of this research is to develop an inexpensive method for analyzing explosives that requires minimal training and can be performed by officers on-site of a crime scene. Because many unidentified subjects have a “modus operandi” or “style” to their crimes, the explosive composition is vital information and could serve as a great advantage to solving a crime. Instrumentation for measuring electrochemiluminescence (ECL) is far less expensive than what is currently used to detect explosives. The quenching of organic luminescors has been previously determined to be successful in detecting explosives as each pair of explosive and luminescor has a unique quenching rate which can be used for identification. Common luminescors often suffer from one of two things in commercially deployed instruments: they can only be used in organic solvents or they require extreme pH conditions. These drawbacks contribute to the safety issues with potential field-deployable methods. One way to alleviate these problems is to use aqueous surfactant solutions. This presentation will demonstrate that a range of organic luminescors can be solubilized at moderate pH levels in aqueous surfactant solutions. We have further determined that quenching by explosives is measurable and exhibits a linear relationship with concentration.

Surfactant-modified method for analysis of explosives through fluorescence quenching

ACS Spring 2022

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