Background
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are the ammunition of choice for terrorism in different parts of the world including the United States. Among these explosives, peroxide-based explosives such as triacetone triperoxide (TATP) are the most potent and dangerous. TATP has a very high vapor pressure and it is very susceptible to heat, friction, and shock leading to an explosion. Peroxide-based explosives, such as TATP pose a significant risk to the US military owing to their ease of fabrication and difficulty in direct detection. Current methods for the detection of peroxide-based explosives require expensive instrumentation, extensive sample preparation, and are too bulky for portable detection.
Description
Researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno have developed a manually portable detection device that can be used to detect IEDs by sensing the presence of one or more airborne chemical constituents of explosive materials. This device would be inexpensive to manufacture and exhibits a fast response time, high sensitivity and selectivity, and a small footprint.
Advantages
- Portable Detection
- Simple sample preparation
- Inexpensive
- Fast detection
- High sensitivity and selectivity
Intellectual Property
A provisional patent application was filed in September 2020
UNR20-025
