Abstract

HMTD is known for its decomposition at low temperatures. The use of common techniques such as GC/MS and GC/µECD for its detection in liquid solutions or solid traces requires the control of analytical conditions. The present work proposes two sensitive methods using GC/MS and GC/µECD where the injector temperature is set at 150°C to analyze successfully the concentrations of 0.1 ng (10-4 mg/mL) and 0.05 ng (0.5 10-4 mg/mL) of HMTD in acetone solutions. The analysis of solid traces of HMTD, was performed with the same methods by adopting the headspace mode using the SPME fiber. The exposure the fiber in the headspace during 10 min at ambient temperature (22°C) and the desorption in the injector at 150°C, allow the detection of HMTD without degradation. In addition, to simulate crater sample, 3 mg of HMTD are mixed to 150 g of soil (0.002%). In this case, HMTD was also successfully detected by HS-SPME-GC/MS and HSSPMEGC/µECD after 1 h exposure of the fiber at 22°C. These results demonstrate the performance of these optimized methods for trace analysis of HMTD.