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Super-Sensitive Spray-On Explosive Detector

Posted by kdawson on from the pssssst-bang dept.

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."

7 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Won't this creat a lot of false positives? by iminplaya · · Score: 5, Interesting

    95% percent of our paper money contains microscopic amounts of cocaine, imagine if we use such sensitive equipment to detect it. We'd all be locked up. Mmmm...maybe that's the intention.

    --
    What?
  2. I lost faith in the current system by Groo+Wanderer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I lost faith in the current airport explosives detectors when I found out that Bondo products set them off. It was a hilarious hour or so watching a broken system thrash about trying to figure out why their machine kept beeping when there were clearly no explosives in my bag.

    Did I mention that this was after a Defcon in the Las Vegas airport?

    I lost what little respect I had in the system (note: Not the people you would ever see on the floor, they have been pretty OK for the most part) at that point.

    Between the War On Moisture, pointless shoe removal, and a TSA that can't ever answer any question with the word 'Why' in it, I have absolutely zero faith in the system any more.

    I am a frequent flier, put in over 100K miles last year and am on track to do more than that this year. If you simply go through the airports enough, you can trivially avoid any security measure there is, it isn't even a trick.

    So, spray on bomb detectors? Great. So? Send the bad guys through security 25 times and you will see several obvious ways to not get it checked. Game over.

              -Charlie

    1. Re:I lost faith in the current system by Amouth · · Score: 4, Interesting

      you might get a kick out of this ..

      two years ago a friend of mine was going back west for xmass to see his family - they are all gun owners and enjoy shooting. He has an AR-15.. apprently ammo is much more expensive out west than here in NC.. so he did his homework and looked up the laws on carrying his AR-15 and ammo with him to go out west.

      he went out and bought the special padded ammo case - and padded gun case that met the requirements.

      when i drove him to the airport.. i went in with him just to make sure they didn't become asses about it and make him leave his gun (if they did i would takeit home).. anyways.. the gun was fine.. the ammo they looked at.. opened.. and spent 30min talking about.. then came to the conclusion.. that he could take it BUT on take the ammo that was still in the orginal manufacturs boxes.. there for the loose shells in the fome inserts couldn't be taken.

      so they took about 40 live rounds of 7.62 out of it.. put it in a clear zipplock bag and handed it to me to stand and wait in the security check line till he boarded the plane....

      so for about an hour every single person is looking at me funny.. and i have to explain to ever damn cop/marine flying home why i have this .. yet the airport security people never said a damn thing to me.

      at that point i think it would be safer to replace airport security with Honda robot's.. as they follow scripts better and would be less likly to be ass holes to people they didn't like

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
  3. DOS attack by snsh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I never understood what happens when an airport baggage handler gets a second job as a landscaper, and comes to work every day covered in nitrates, and spreads it on everyone's luggages? How do chemical detectors deal with all these sources of noise?

  4. too bad it causes cancer by nguy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/1809825/Environmental-Protection-Agency-flourene

    Well, OK, technically it's silaflourene, but that has a good chance of being worse.

    I really think you don't want this stuff sprayed on you.

  5. Salt substitute... by SmoothTom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Black powder is based on potassium nitrate (and charcoal and sulfur), but so is the salt substitute I use in my low-sodium diet.

    I suspect that I probably have enough potassium nitrate on everything I own to leave trace on everything that touches anything I own.

    Given the extreme sensitivity of this solution, my entire world would probably glow blue.

    Of course anyone who just ate fries at MacDonalds has hands just COVERED in nitrates (sodium nitrate - plain old table salt)...

    I question how useful this is in the real world.

    --Tomas

  6. Re:will it cut down the line at the airport? by neBelcnU · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Agreed: You want to do it right, you need to model the operations of Israeli airport/airline security.

    The impressive thing was the flight INTO IL: Transferring in the EU, over an hour before boarding, 2 cars pulled up to the plane and unloaded non-uniformed armed security who inspected, then surrounded the plane, and remained in sight of each other at all times. This was long before we saw the security crew for us appear and setup their podia to perform the aforementioned interviews. The interview was very little, but eye contact was absolutely constant after the document review. Plus an old-fashioned second xray of the carry ons. It was very smooth, thorough and no doubt expensive.

    Ben Gurion, for the flight out, was as-described, minus the wait: At 5am on a Saturday, it's rather quiet.

    Interesting at TLV: the security interviews (2 plus bag searches for those without special letters) were all conducted by young women. The entire crew was 90% women, and no one looked older than mid 30's. Couldn't figure out if those observations were the results of scheduling, or a choice for strategic reasons.

    My take on all of this is there is absolutely no substitute for an attentive person simply interviewing. US Customs has known this for years, it cannot be outsourced, it takes time to train these folks, a minor amount of time for us, and seems to be working. All reasons why Security Theater has no reason to fear: inertia will keep us on the current path well past every threshold of ridiculosity we could ever possibly imagine.