The explosive material known as Composition C4, or simply C4, is an RDX based military grade explosive. RDX itself possesses a negligible vapor pressure at room temperature suggesting it is not a good target for conventional instruments designed to detect vapor phase chemical compounds. Recent research with canines has indicated that a better approach for detecting explosive vapors such as C4 is to focus on a characteristic mixture of impurities associated with the material. These characteristic mixtures of impurity vapors are referred to by canine researchers as the explosive bouquet and are fairly unique to the specific energetic material. In this paper, we will examine and report rotationally resolved infrared spectral signatures for the known compounds comprising the explosive bouquet for C4 based explosives including isobutylene, 2-ethyl-1-hexanol and cyclohexanone.

Date Published: 3 June 2011
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8018, Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) Sensing XII, 80181Z (3 June 2011); doi: 10.1117/12.892049

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8018:
Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) Sensing XII
Augustus W. Fountain III; Patrick J. Gardner, Editor(s)