4. Conclusion

There are therefore a large number of techniques available for detecting and quantifying the presence of explosives in soils. Studies carried out at CEA Le Ripault show that ultrasonic extraction and vortex-type mechanical agitation techniques are applicable to the detection of trace amounts of this type of compound in soils. The mechanical agitation technique has the advantage of a short duration of only ten minutes. However, as the ASTM (1991) D5143-90 method describing the extraction of explosives from soils by thermoregulated ultrasound is currently the only standardized method, it is used to extract and analyze traces of these compounds in soil.

The ultrasonic extraction method confirmed with octogen will be applied at CEA Le Ripault for the analysis of other explosives in the coming months.