The New Year's Eve Effect: Analysis of the presence of pyrotechnic explosives related ions in the background using IC-ESI-MS second part

New Year’s Eve is a very popular annual event. Most people save up for this event to purchase consumer fireworks and wait to ignite the firework on the day itself. Some ions which are present in consumer fireworks are also present in the environment and could have an impact on the data interpretations of a case related sample. A previous study (1st ed. NYEE) has been done. Some ions on some objects decrease to their average concentration with a period of a few weeks [2]. The aim of this study is to carry out a second edition of the NYEE focused on the cations. Colleagues from the Explosives team of the NFI volunteered to take samples in December 2018 and on the 1st of January 2019. The samples were taken by swabbing an A5 surface of an object with an isopropanol swab. After the sample preparations the samples were analysed with a new state-of-the-art ACN-enhanced isocratic cation chromatography method, which is coupled to an electro spray ionization mass spectrometry (IC-ESI-MS). It is observed that in some samples cations like copper, urea, ammonium, sodium and potassium are present. Although not all concentration could be determined because they are either above or below the calibration curve. And urea has been identified, however it is not possible to quantify and to say what the origin is. It could be coming from the swabs used for swabbing [1]. The results are obtained under the conditions as present during this study. In conclusion it is possible to quantify few cations in a certain range of the concentrations