https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-024-05410-w
Regular Article
Evaluation of the permanence of benzene on solid material with GC–MS analytical techniques, at time intervals
1
Italian National Fire and Rescue Service, Rome, Italy
2
Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
a
claudio.demaio@vigilfuoco.it
Received:
25
March
2024
Accepted:
28
June
2024
Published online:
19
July
2024
The aim of the work is to evaluate the permanence of flame accelerators (pure benzene) in a solid matrix, at regular intervals of time, in order to create a procedure that gives indications on the time within which the fire investigation teams can detect the presence of flame accelerants and its decay, if exposed to air. 1μl of benzene was placed on a 1cm x 1cm piece of cotton cloth, and tested for the presence of benzene after 0–6-12–24-36–48-72–120-240–360 h. The analytical technique used to give answers to this is the use of the gas chromatograph—mass spectrometer (GC–MS), which allows to detect the presence of flame accelerators even in small quantities in the samples. A series of a variety of benzene-soaked samples will be reproduced in a controlled environment, originally containing flame-accelerating materials, and then compared to each other to evaluate a benzene dispersion curve on the samples. The results will be obtained by GC–MS analysis with helium carrier gas and ASTM A1618 method, in order to give an indication of how long it is still possible to find traces of pure flame accelerators on solid matrices. This work also aims to lay the foundations for subsequent experiments with other commonly used materials.
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
