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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry Paired with Total Vaporization Solid-Phase Microextraction as a Forensic Tool
Published on: May 25, 2021
Differentiation of unevaporated gasoline samples according to their brands, by SPME-GC-MS and multivariate
Maria Monfreda1, Adolfo Gregori
1Agenzia delle Dogane, Direzione Regionale per il Lazio e l'Umbria, Sezione Operativa Laboratorio Chimico, via Carucci 71, 00143 Rome, Italy. maria.monfreda@gmail.com
Abstract:
One of the aims of fire investigations is to identify associations among accelerants according to their source. In this study, 50 gasoline samples--representing five brands--were analyzed using solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Chemometric procedures, such as principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant analysis (DA), were applied to a data matrix obtained by the target compound chromatogram method, to discriminate samples according to their brand. PCA was successful in finding a natural grouping of samples according to their brand, suggesting that aromatic compounds were more useful than aliphatics for the purpose of this study. DA, if applied to aromatic compounds, gave both a classification ability and a prediction ability of 100%. The outstanding results obtained by this work provide the basis of a data matrix that could be used in real cases of arson to link a sample of unevaporated gasoline to its brand or refinery.
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