Separation of antimony from synthetic cloth: Application in forensic science using neutron activation analysis

Summary A simple ion-exchange separation procedure was developed for selective removal of antimony from synthetic cloth to facilitate determination of several trace elements frequently used to identify gunshot residues by neutron activation analysis. Radiotracers of Sb, Ba, Cu, Co, As, Zn, Hg and Ag were employed to optimize the developed procedure. The method involves the quantitative retention of the above elements, except of Sb, from 0.2M ammonium carbonate solution using Chelex 100 resin and subsequent quantitative elution of the elements of interest with 2M nitric acid for gamma-ray spectrometry. The procedure was tested by simulated gunshot residues.