TY - JOUR A1 - Krüger, Simone A1 - Stoll, S. A1 - Roider, G. A1 - Kraus, S. A1 - Keil, W. T1 - Hydrogen cyanide in fire tests Forensic aspects N2 - The inhalationof smoke gases is awell-established cause of poisoning and leads to the death of fire victims. Carbonmonoxide(CO) and Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) are two of the main noxious gases,whereby HCN is formed by an incomplete combustion of materials containing nitrogen. These materials may be natural materials, such as wool, silk and feathers or synthetic plastics, such as polyacrylonitrile (PAN), polyamide and polyurethane. These materials are very common in modern household furnishings; therefore, notonlyCObutalsoHCN can be produced during home fires. Up tonowonly a fewstudieshave been carried out on the generation of HCN as the fire proceeds, e. g. by Crewe et al. The data from such analyses are useful for forensic purposes. This enables the possibility to more accurately assess the events at the fire location, the Situation in which the fire victims are found as well as the cause of death. One way to analyze the gas composition of smoke is to perform bench scale fire tests, where various fire scenarios can be simulated on a smaller scale (e. g. using a smoke density chamber). The results from such experiments were compared with the results obtained in an enclosed room fire test. KW - Fire test KW - Hydrogen cyanide KW - Forensic KW - Carbon monoxide KW - Smoke inhalation injury KW - Polyurethane KW - Fires KW - Toxicity PY - 2016 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00194-016-0090-5 SN - 0937-9819 VL - 26 IS - 3 SP - 184 EP - 188 PB - Springer Verlag CY - New York, NY, USA AN - OPUS4-36671 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -