Explosives Analysis in 2025: From Sensitivity Claims to Decision-Grade Evidence

Explosives residue analysis in the 2025 literature is constrained less by instrumental capability than by scene governance, sampling/recovery, matrix interference, contamination control, and decision thresholds in court-facing contexts. Accordingly, methods are discussed as screening/triage tools versus confirmation strategies, emphasising when a result is presumptive and when it can be decision-grade. This review synthesises 2025 work spanning organic energetic compounds and inorganic oxidiser / fuel ions, with emphasis on trace recovery, uncertainty, and method-level validation. Three recurrent themes emerge. First, field realism is improving through background surveys and outdoor surface studies that quantify operational baselines, indicating that low-level organic detections can be uncommon in public environments while benign inorganic ions are widespread. Second, analytical defensibility increasingly depends on workflow governance: explicit LOD/LOQ definitions, fit-for-purpose performance framing, and disciplined blank and anti-contamination design, rather than single-number sensitivity claims. Third, growth in near-field and standoff screening (e.g., Raman / IR, SERS, IMS) and remote deployment concepts shifts the bottleneck from nominal detection limits to selectivity, library integrity, and interpretation discipline. Computational approaches-including DFT-informed spectra, similarity statistics, and machine-learning optimisation-are discussed as triage enablers, but become decision-grade only when anchored to validation in realistic matrices with transparent preprocessing and externally tested thresholds. Overall, the 2025 corpus supports a pragmatic conclusion: explosives residue analysis should be treated as a high-reliability, end-to-end system-governed from scene to report-to minimise false association and reduce injustice risk.