Flow injection analysis of organic peroxide explosives using acid degradation and chemiluminescent detection of released hydrogen peroxide

• Acid degradation – a key tool to the sensitive detection of organic peroxide explosives.
• For the first time acidic degradation of methylethyl ketone peroxide is reported.
• Sensitive detection of organic peroxide explosives performed in 1.5–3 min.

The applicability of acid degradation of organic peroxides into hydrogen peroxide in a pneumatically driven flow injection system with chemiluminescence reaction with luminol and Cu2+ as a catalyst (FIA-CL) was investigated for the fast and sensitive detection of organic peroxide explosives (OPEs). The target OPEs included hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD), triacetone triperoxide (TATP) and methylethyl ketone peroxide (MEKP). Under optimised conditions maximum degradations of 70% and 54% for TATP and HMTD, respectively were achieved at 162 µL min−1, and 9% degradation for MEKP at 180 µL min−1. Flow rates were precisely controlled in this single source pneumatic pressure driven multi-channel FIA system by model experiments on mixing of easily detectable component solutions. The linear range for detection of TATP, HMTD and H2O2 was 1–200 µM (r2=0.98–0.99) at both flow rates, while that for MEKP was 20–200 µM (r2=0.97) at 180 µL min−1. The detection limits (LODs) obtained were 0.5 µM for TATP, HMTD and H2O2 and 10 µM for MEKP. The detection times varied from 1.5 to 3 min in this FIA-CL system. Whilst the LOD for H2O2 was comparable with those reported by other investigators, the LODs and analysis times for TATP and HMTD were superior, and significantly, this is the first time the detection of MEKP has been reported by FIA-CL.

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