Quality Control in the Detection and Identification of Traces of Organic High Explosives

The number of organic compounds which have few uses other than as high explosives, and which are widely used in large quantities, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They are ethylene glycol dinitrate (EGDN), nitroglycerine (NG), trinitrotoluene (TNT), pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and cyclotrimethylene trinitramine (RDX, hexogen, cyclonite). A few other organic compounds such as cyclotetramethylene tetranitramine (HMX, octogen) and hexanitrostilbene, find limited or specialist use.