Stable Isotope Forensics: Acid Scavenger/ Agent Stabilizer Signatures Development
EMSL Project ID
33990
Abstract
This proposal supports the Department of Homeland Security's need for improved forensic and attribution technologies for chemical weapons. The product of the proposed work is methodology for trace sampling, chemically-specific separations, and analysis using gas-chromatography and high precision stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) measurements of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen. The forensic requirement met is the characterization of isotopic fingerprints that carry the sample legacy information, viz., high precision isotope ratio abundance measurements of these elements provide signatures that reflect synthesis methods and provide source material/agent associations.The scope of the proposed work is purposefully limited to the isotopic analysis of acid scavengers such as triethylamine, tributylamine, and diethylaniline. These are common additives in chemical agent production and, as "observers" in the synthetic process, are thought to retain their isotopic identity during synthetic processes and storage. As such, the isotopic abundance measurement of these species will provide a chemical agent signature analysis technique that is readily transferred to DHS partner laboratories in the near term. This technique would allow comparative isotopic analysis of known and suspect stabilizer materials and develop transferable methodologies for CA products, by-products, degradation products and reactants. Chemical analyses from known sources will assess the range of isotopic variability that may be encountered and will define the utility of this signature.
Project Details
Start Date
2009-04-07
End Date
2012-04-08
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Team Members
Related Publications
Moran JJ, HW Kreuzer, AJ Carman, JH Wahl, and DC Duckworth. 2012. "Multiple stable isotope characterization as a forensic tool to distinguish acid scavenger samples." Journal of Forensic Sciences 57(1):60-63. doi:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2011.01959.x