A simple, inexpensive, rapid, sensitive and solventless technique for the analysis of accelerants in fire debris based on SPME

The current method of choice for the extraction of flammable or combustible liquid resides from fire debris samples is passive headspace concentration using activated charcoal strips (ACS) for adsorption of the liquid residues followed by elution with carbon disulfide or other suitable solvent. Presently, we report a new technique based on headspace solid‐phase microextraction which has been successfully applied to the identification of a wide range of accelerants commonly seen in arson analysis. The SPME technique developed is simple, inexpensive, rapid, and eliminates the use of the highly flammable and toxic solvent carbon disulfide. Results using this SPME method have been directly compared to results obtained via the ACS technique for light, medium, and heavy petroleum distillates as well as gasoline. All of the accelerants studied were accurately identified by the SPME method with equal or greater sensitivity compared to the ACS method.