Home > News > Portable, cheap and fast explosives detector built with nanotechnology
December 12th, 2006
Portable, cheap and fast explosives detector built with nanotechnology
Abstract:
Due to the the increased use of modern bombs in terrorist attacks worldwide, where the amount of metal used is becoming very small, the development of a new approach capable of rapidly and cost-efficiently detecting volatile chemical emission from explosives is highly desirable and urgently necessary nowadays. The trained dogs and physical methods such as gas chromatography coupled to a mass spectrometer, nuclear quadrupole resonance, electron capture detection as well as electrochemical approaches are highly sensitive and selective, but some of these techniques are expensive and others are not easily fielded in a small, low-power package. As a complementary method, however, chemical sensors provide new approaches to the rapid detection of ultra-trace analytes from explosives, and can be easily incorporated into inexpensive and portable microelectronic devices. Researchers in PR China have developed a nanocomposite film that shows very fast fluorescence response to trace vapors of explosives such as TNT, DNT or NB.
Source:
nanowerk.com
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