Purification of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene by digestion with sodium sulfite and determination of its impurities by gas chromatography–electron capture detector (GC-ECD)

Abstract

Unwanted compounds in 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosive, such as dinitrotoluene (DNT) and TNT isomers, can lead to exudation defects in the ammunition. For this reason, separation and analysis of impurities are valuable. Chemical treatment with sulfite solution is an important method for the purification of TNT. In this paper, TNT was purified by sodium sulfite solution with putting flaked TNT in digestion condition to remove existing impurities, and the effect of four main factors, digestion temperature, digestion time, concentration of sulfite solution and reaction time of sulfite with impurities on this purification process, was statistically investigated and optimized using central composite design of experiment (CCD) by Minitab software. Also, the qualification of final product was characterized by gas chromatography–electron capture detector method. Here, some conventional compounds such as 2,6-DNT, 2,4-DNT, 3,4-DNT, 2,4,5-TNT (γ-TNT), 2,3,4-TNT (β-TNT) and aniline derivatives were identified by standard solutions; then their concentrations were quantitatively determined by internal standard calibration method.