The most remarkable interference to gasoline identification from polystyrene-co-butadiene and the corresponding cause

Abstract

The identification of ILRs in fire investigations has attracted great attention for decades, and background at fire scenes caused complex interference on ILR identification by contributing characteristic compounds. Aiming at exploring the correlation between the interference extent to gasoline identification and chemical composition/structure, two polystyrene-butadiene rubbers (SBr) with typical styrene contents involving alkylbenzene in molecules were selected particularly. The free burning residues in the presence and absence of gasoline were collected and analyzed via gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. It is striking that SBr with typical styrene content caused the most remarkable interference to gasoline identification as far as reported since it is even impossible to be distinguished from gasoline through chromatography profiles. Additionally, the molecular structure together with the chemical composition influences the interference extent as well. To trace the source of the remarkable interference from SBr, polystyrene, polybutadiene, as well as one polystyrene-butadiene-styrene block copolymer, were picked particularly due to their specific chemical relations. The results of target compounds analysis on the corresponding combustion residues revealed that the remarkable interference of SBrs originated from the combination of 'styrene' and 'butadiene' by contributing different target compounds. The results provide further support for the proposal of the correlation of the interferents chemical compositions with the interference extent. Furthermore, this study provides important references for fire debris analysis by predicting the interference of different substrates on the basis of their chemical composition.