Forensic Fiber Analysis by Thermal Desorption/Pyrolysis-Direct Analysis in Real Time-Mass Spectrometry

The thermal desorption/pyrolysis-direct analysis in real time-mass spectrometry (TD/Py-DART-MS) method was developed for the analysis of fibers in this study. The fiber samples were pyrolyzed with a temperature gradient and the pyrolysis products were determined by DART-MS. The pyrogram from the TD/Py-DART-MS fiber analysis was found to be associated with the physical properties such as the melting points. At the same time, the TD/Py-DART-MS allows the analyst to obtain the chemical information such as polymeric backbone structures and dyes on the fiber. The pyrolysis profiles of common polymeric fibers in textile materials such as cotton, cellulose triacetate (CT), poly(caprolactam) (nylon-6), poly(hexamethylene adipamide) (nylon-6/6), poly(acrylonitrile) (PAN), poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT), poly(propylene) (PP), and polytrimethylene terephthalate (PTT) and their respective characteristic mass spectra were reported in this study. The fibers from 40 commercial tex...