A case study on the fire victim in the vehicle by GC/MS through derivatization of cyanide with pentafluorobenzyl bromide (PFBBr)

Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is an extremely toxic gas frequently produced during the incineration of plastics, such as acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS). A victim of a fire who has inhaled smoke could have cyanide in the blood. Therefore, cyanide could be a good marker for a post-mortem examination of a fire as well as carboxyhemoglobine (COHb) test of blood samples. For a particular fire case, a burned body with a suicide note was found inside a burned vehicle. Even though the COHb value is conclusive evidence, measuring the COHb for denatured blood might be difficult due to severe thermal denaturation or the formation of methemoglobin (MetHb). To overcome this difficulty, cyanide could be used as an indicator when investigating the death of a fire victim. In this study, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) was adopted to measure the levels of cyanide in the blood through derivatization with pentafluorobenzyl bromide (PFBBr) under cation surfactant by scan and SIM mode. The concentration of cyanide in the blood of heart blood and brain of the victim was found to be 0.36 μg/mL and 1.20 μg/mL respectively, which was higher than the average value (0.041 μg/mL) found in the blood of 14 people who smoked. 요 약: 시안화수소는 ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) 등의 플라스틱류 화재시에 발생될 수 있는 유 독성 기체이기에 시안화수소가 함유된 연기를 흡입하였을 경우 변사자의 혈액에서도 검출될 수 있다. 따 라서 열기로 혈액 등의 생체시료의 손상정도가 강하여 일산화탄소-헤모글로빈 농도의 측정이 어려운 경 ★ Corresponding author Phone : +82-(0)33-902-5221 Fax : +82-(0)33-902-5933 E-mail : pajlee@korea.kr This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/ by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 74 Joon-Bae Lee et al. Analytical Science & Technology 우 사인규명을 위한 지표로 활용될 수 있으리라 사료된다. 본 연구의 사례는 유서와 함께 화재가 발생한 차량내에서 발견된 변사체의 사인규명과 관련이 있다. 화재사의 경우 일산화탄소-헤모글로빈 농도가 결 정적인 정보를 제공하지만 열기로 심하게 손상되어 이에 대한 측정이 어려워 시안화이온을 분석하고자 하였다. 시안화이온을 양이온계면활성제와 함께 pentafluorobenzyl bromide로 유도체화 시킨 다음 기체크 로마토그래피/질량분석법으로 scan mode와 SIM mode로 분석하였다. 변사체 심혈과 뇌혈에서 시안화이 온이 정상 흡연자 14인의 평균값(0.041 μg/mL)보다 높은 0.36 μg/mL 및 1.20 μg/mL 확인되었다.