Explosive Ordnance Detection in Land and Water Environments with Solid Phase Extraction/Ion Mobility Spectrometry.

The qualitative and quantitative determination of nitroaromatic compounds such as trinitrotoluene (TNT) and dinitrotoluene (DNT) in water and soil has applications to environmental remediation and the detection of buried military ordnance. Recent results of laboratory and field test have shown that trace level concentrations of these compounds can be detected in water, soil, and solid gas samples taken from the vicinity of submerged or buried ordnance using specialized sampling and signal enhancement techniques. Solid phase micro-extraction methods have been combined with Ion Mobility Spectroscopy to provide rapid, sub-parts-per-billion analysis of these compounds. In this paper, we will describe the gas. These sampling systems, when combined with field-portable IMS, are being developed as a means of classifying buried or submerged objects as explosive ordnance.