Diphenylamine and derivatives as predictors of gunpowder age by means of HPLC and statistical models

The gunpowder age is information of great importance that could help to establish safety regulations related to the propellants use and manipulation. In this work, a forced aging treatment (65 °C for 120 days) was applied to four gunpowders stabilized with diphenylamine (DPA). The evolution of DPA and derivatives (N-nitroso-DPA, 2-nitro-DPA, 4-nitro-DPA, and 4-4′-dinitro-DPA) concentration during the days was leaded by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). The variation with time of the peak areas of these compounds was used to construct different statistical models that could predict the gunpowders age. These models were validated using nitrocellulose-based gunpowders of known manufacture date. Models that best predicted the gunpowder age provided prediction errors lower than 6, 4, and 2 years for single-base gunpowders with dinitrotoluene (≥10% (m/m)), single-base gunpowders and double-base gunpowders, respectively.