There has been increased attention on the persistence of residual explosive materials and their degradation products, which are substances that are highly toxic to the environment. Gas chromatography (GC) is one of the methods used to determine these substances, but because some explosive materials and their byproducts are thermally unstable or nonvolatile, this can result in inexact determinations. HPLC with UV detection is ideally suited for low-level determination because it is not subject to these limitations.
Use of on-line SPE with UV detection eliminates the labor associated with off-line extraction and provides a convenient method that achieves reduced MDLs (<0.35 μg/mL) when determining these compounds in water.
