Luminescent Polymer Explosives Detector
19 June 2008, 06:01
Categories: smt-luminescent-light-emit sensors
A new, easy-to-use explosives detector developed by RedXDefense could provide a quick, simple visual diagnostic for plastic explosives. The device is portable and designed for use by non-scientists at security checkpoints and under harsh conditions. The product, called the XPak, is currently undergoing field tests in Iraq.
“Most explosives-detection methods go after sensing vapors,” says William Trogler, a chemistry professor at the University of California, San Diego, who developed the technology behind the device. This works well for detecting buried land mines and other devices that use volatile explosives, such as TNT, that form a gas that can be detected in the air. But the plastic explosives often used by terrorists are not very volatile, and technologies for their detection usually require dislodging the explosive from a surface, such as with a puff of air, before running a chemical analysis. And these systems are not portable.
Trogler developed a sprayable polymer that fluoresces blue-green under ultraviolet (UV) light, unless in the presence of explosive molecules, including PETN and TNT, that turn off this fluorescence. When the polymer is sprayed on a surface and examined under UV light, explosives appear as black spots.
Posted by: The Editors
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