ABSTRACT
Chromatography permits the separation, detection and quantitation of both the explosive and non-explosive components of energetic materials, allowing them to be identified and compared. During the investigation of an explosives incident, chromatography is an essential procedure used to separate trace amounts of unreacted explosives from a wide variety of sample matrices. In this chapter, the application of the following chromatographic techniques to explosives analysis is discussed:
• gas chromatography; • high performance liquid chromatography; • thin layer chromatography; • size exclusion chromatography; • ion chromatography; • capillary electrophoresis; • supercritical fluid chromatography.
