TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2023//
TI  - A simple voltammetric method to evaluate the firing distance through determination of nitrocellulose
JO  - Talanta
A1  - Profumo, Antonella
A1  - Capucciati, Andrea
A1  - Mattino, Alessia
A1  - Donghi, Matteo
A1  - Merli, Daniele
SP  - e125040
EP  - e125040
VL  - 266
IS  - Pt 1
N2  - Nitrocellulose (NC) is the main component of propellants for small firearm ammunitions. Even though NC particles are ejected from gun barrels together with bullets and they are often recovered on close-to-muzzle targets, quantitative analysis of nitrocellulose for forensic purposes has been neglected so far. Moreover, although the presence of the nitroester groups makes nitrocellulose electroactive, its electrochemical determination has been poorly considered in literature. In this paper, a quantitative differential pulse voltammetric method for the analysis of nitrocellulose in targets is suggested, with the aim of estimating its concentration decay on targets with increasing the shooting distance. The presented method works in acetonitrile/ethanol/lithium perchlorate, has a LOQ of 4 mg L(-1) and linearity up to 2000 mg L(-1). Ammunitions loaded with a nitrocellulose/nitroglycerine-based gunpowder were discharged to draw a calibration curve for shooting distance determination in the range from 5 cm to 120 cm. The effect of possible interfering substances (water, nitroglycerine, nitroguanidine, nitrites) was evaluated, and results are compared with literature methods.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0039-9140
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.talanta.2023.125040
ID  - ref1
ER  -