Study on Fire Residues in Pure Cotton Fabric Combustion

Abstract

Residual accelerant from fire debris is the major evidence in the fire investigation. Because all evidences are almost damaged by fire, many isolation methods of analytical chemistry has been already used in extracting trace residue. In this paper, ultrasonic extraction is applied to isolate the residual accelerant and hexane as the solvent. The solution obtained from the residue is tested by GC-MS to analyze their total ion chromatogram (TIC). The chromatographic patterns observed for ignitable liquids are different from the patterns observed for without ignitable liquids. The composition of two samples and content of the fire residues have been analyzed. It’s very important for forensic chemist to distinguish the arson or natural fire.