Super-Sensitive Spray-On Explosive Detector

esocid writes "US scientists have designed a new spray-on explosive detector sensitive enough to detect just a billionth of a gram of (nitrogen-containing) explosive. After treatment, the explosive glows blue under UV light, making the detector perfect for use in the field. The silafluorene-fluorene copolymer can detect explosives at much lower levels than existing systems because it detects particles instead of explosive vapors, and is able to show the difference between nitrate esters (trinitroglycerin) and nitroaromatic explosives (TNT). The team is currently working on a similar system to detect peroxide-based explosives and say they hope to be able to investigate perchlorates and organic nitrates, too."

Comments

Re:how about glycerin

[Atraxen]

You've fallen into the most common problem non-chemists have when reading about chemistry. Glycerin is NOT the same thing as trinitroglycerin. The reactivities aren't even close, and the structures have significant differences which lead to very different behaviors. Another comment also treated household hydrogen peroxide as equivalent to all other peroxides, and assumed they would all be detected the same way (this shows the same misconception, but is accidentally more correct than the parent comment...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycerin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitroglycerin

Remember folks, if you're chemically untrained the WHOLE word is what you should be looking for (there is structural info in the name, and that helps give rise to the properties we observe, but interpreting structures into behavior is tricky even for professional chemists....) Some analogous circumstances which arise from noticing a word fragment and extrapolating.....
screw = screwdriver
son = sonogram
hill = hillary
bus = business

I'm sure there are better examples, but hopefully I've made the point.