Neutral Desorption Using a Sealed Enclosure to Sample Explosives on Human Skin for Rapid Detection by EESI-MS

A novel air-tight neutral desorption enclosure has been fabricated to noninvasively sample low picograms of explosives 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX), octahydro-1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetraazocine (HMX), triacetone triperoxide (TATP), and nitro-glycerin (NG) from human skin using a neutral nitrogen gas beam. Without further sample pretreatment, the explosive mixtures collected from the skin surface were directly transported by a nitrogen carrier gas over a 4-m distance for sensitive detection and rapid identification by extractive electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. (J Am Soc Mass Spectrom 2009,20, 719-722) (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of American Society for Mass Spectrometry