[A case of chloropicrin detection by purge and trap gas chromatography/mass spectrometry]

Chloropicrin (CP) is an agricultural chemical used as insecticide or fungicide, which occasionally causes accidental poisoning and may used in criminal cases including suicide and homicide. Although CP is usually analyzed using gas chromatography/electron capture detection technique (GC/ECD), further identification by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) may be required from the view point of forensic chemistry and also clinical toxicology. However, it is very difficult to detect a trace of CP by routine GC/MS. The present paper describes a criminal case, in which GC/MS equipped with curie point purge and trap sampler was successfully applied to detect a small amount of CP.