Development of GC-MS and chemometric methods for the analysis of accelerants in arson cases

CHED 211

Boone M. Prentice, bmp595@longwood.edu, Melissa C. Rhoten, rhotenmc@longwood.edu, and Sarah E. G. Porter, portersg@longwood.edu. Department of Chemistry and Physics, Longwood University, 201 High Street, Farmville, VA 23909
There is an interest in the forensic community in identifying accelerants by their gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) profile. In this work, samples of accelerants were analyzed by GC-MS and compared using chemometric analysis. Unweathered gasoline standards were purchased from Restekź, and all grades of unleaded gasoline were purchased at a local gas station. GC-MS analysis was performed on a 30m x 0.25 mm x 0.25 ”m VF-1ms capillary column using a Varian GC-MS system with the following conditions: split injection (50:1) at 250șC; 50șC (2.5 min isothermal) to 300șC (5.83 minutes isothermal) at 15șC/min; He flow rate = 1 mL/min. The GC-MS chromatograms were compared using principal component analysis. A pattern recognition algorithm was developed based on the variance-covariance matrix of the data set. Replicate analyses of the analytical standards constituted a set of training data to which the purchased gasoline samples could be compared.
 

Undergraduate Research Poster Session: Analytical Chemistry
11:00 AM-1:00 PM, Monday, April 7, 2008 Morial Convention Center -- Hall A, Poster

Division of Chemical Education

The 235th ACS National Meeting, New Orleans, LA, April 6-10, 2008