Photodissociation of 2, 4, 6-trinitrotoluene with a Nd:YAG laser at 532nm

2, 4, 6-Trinitrotoluene (TNT) belongs to the group of aromatic nitro compounds which have extended use in industrial applications, in particular as explosives or additives to explosives. Understanding the initial step of laser induced decomposition of common explosives is important to the reliability and safety of laser initiators and firing systems. Lasers coupled with mass spectrometer find wide application in photochemical studies for identification of different ions formed due to photoexcitation/ionization of molecules by laser. In this paper, a pulsed Nd: YAG (15ns, 532nm) laser was used for ionizating the condensed TNT sample, and the ions produced in the ionization process were detected by a time of flight mass spectrometer (TOFMS). The influence of laser fluence and the delay time to the decomposition was also studied. According to the assignment of both positive and negative ions, possible laser induced dissociation pathways were proposed. The results may tell much about the initiation process and the chemical reaction that may occur in TNT when exposed to laser pulse.

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