Chemical profiling of explosives

The primary goal of this thesis is to develop analytical methods for the chemical profiling of explosives. Current methodologies for the forensic analysis of explosives focus on identification of the explosive material. However, chemical profiling of explosives becomes increasingly important, as this allows studying relationships between explosive material found on a crime scene and material associated with a suspect. A range of approaches to chemical profiling is explored in this thesis for various purposes and various types of explosives. Chemical profiling is used to study relationships between two explosives samples (i.e. a crime-scene sample and a sample from a suspect) and between a home-made explosive and its precursors. These relationships were studied using impurity profiles, isotope ratios or elemental compositions, all characteristic features of the origin of the explosive materials. In addition to the ‘source-level’ comparisons, we also demonstrate the use of chemical profiling for ‘activity-level’ investigations. In the latter case, it was demonstrated that it is possible to establish whether a suspect with explosives residues on his clothing has been present at an explosion scene.