BAM spin-off develops lightweight explosives trace detector for mobile use

Novel detection chemistry based on chemical-optical measurement technology

16-May-2023 - The detection of explosives is important for civil security. Previous sensors are heavy, expensive and complex to maintain. A team of founders from the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) wants to bring a mobile explosives trace detector to market that detects explosives ...

Black silicon can help detect explosives

29-Nov-2019 - Scientists from Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, and Melbourne Center for Nanofabrication developed an ultrasensitive detector based on black silicon. The device is able to detect trace amounts of ...

TNT could be headed for retirement after 116 years on the job

18-Jun-2018 - Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Maryland have developed a novel “melt-cast” explosive material that could be a suitable replacement for Trinitrotoluene, more commonly known as TNT. “The Army and the Laboratory, through the Joint ...

One step closer to understanding explosive sensitivity with molecule design

20-Apr-2018 - Explosives have an inherent problem - they should be perfectly safe for handling and storage but detonate reliably on demand. Using computer modeling and a novel molecule design technique, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have replaced one "arm" of an explosive molecule to help ...

Greater oversight of precursor chemicals at retail level needed to reduce threat from IEDs

16-Nov-2017 - Policymakers' efforts to reduce threats from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) should include greater oversight of precursor chemicals sold at the retail level - especially over the Internet - that terrorists, violent extremists, or criminals use to make homemade explosives, says a new report ...

Sniffing like a dog can improve trace detection of explosives

05-Dec-2016 - By mimicking how dogs get their whiffs, a team of government and university researchers have demonstrated that "active sniffing" can improve by more than 10 times the performance of current technologies that rely on continuous suction to detect trace amounts of explosives and other ...

New compounds pack more punch

29-Nov-2016 - LMU chemists led by Professor Thomas M. Klapötke have synthesized two novel compounds which are markedly more efficient than those currently used in civil engineering. “These high-performance energetic substances are based on the parent molecule bispyrazolylmethane, but belong to a group of its ...

Nanobionic spinach plants can detect explosives

After sensing dangerous chemicals, the carbon-nanotube-enhanced plants send an alert.

01-Nov-2016 - Spinach is no longer just a superfood: By embedding leaves with carbon nanotubes, MIT engineers have transformed spinach plants into sensors that can detect explosives and wirelessly relay that information to a handheld device similar to a smartphone. This is one of the first demonstrations of ...

Shrinking the inside of an explosion

02-Sep-2016 - Testing explosions is epic science. The most detailed studies of explosive charges have been conducted at national laboratories using a gun as big as a room to fire a flat bullet -- the flyer plate, typically 100 millimeters in diameter -- into an explosive charge inside a thick-walled chamber ...

Sniffing out a dangerous vapor

31-Mar-2016 - Alkane fuel is a key ingredient in combustible material such as gasoline, airplane fuel, oil -- even a homemade bomb. Yet it's difficult to detect and there are no portable scanners available that can sniff out the odorless and colorless vapor. But University of Utah engineers have developed a ...