Sensitive detection of black powder by stand-alone ion mobility spectrometer with chlorinated hydrocarbon modifiers in drift gas

A simple method was developed for the sensitive detection of black powder using the conventional ion mobility spectrometer by adding 1.4 ppm CCl4 modifier in the drift gas. Moreover, the current method also showed excellent performance for the detection of common military explosives such as ANFO, TNT, and PETN at sub-nanogram level.