This review describes an "electronic dog nose" based on a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor and an antigen-antibody interaction for security and safety. We have concentrated on developing appropriate sensor surfaces for the SPR sensor for practical use. The review covers different surface fabrications, which all include variations of a self-assembled monolayer containing oligo(ethylene gly...

Contamination of groundwater, surface water and soil by explosives has occurred at military sites throughout the world as a result of manufacture of explosive compounds, assembly of munitions, and deployment of explosives containing devices. Due to the adverse effects of explosives on humans and other natural receptors, a low cost means of decontaminating these areas of contamination is needed....

The feasibility of using biochar as a sorbent to remove nitro explosives and metals from contaminated water was investigated through batch experiments. Biochar, synthesized using various biomasses, showed a porous structure and a high surface area and includes embedded carbonate minerals. Compared with granular activated carbon, biochar was competitive as a sorbent for removing Cd, Cu, Pb, and ...

The pressure-time profiles produced by initiation in free-air of four commercial sector explosives covering a range of velocities of detonation are reported. The results indicate that there are no significant differences in the blast wave shapes from the explosives when measured between 5 and 20 m from the initiation point. The dependence of peak overpressure and positive phase impulse on scale...

Honeybees offer the potential of using free-flying organisms to search wide areas for the presence of explosives, unexploded ordnance (UXO), and landmines. The use of bees is analogous to dogs for mine clearance, except that a colony of tens of thousands of bees can be trained in about one hour to fly over and search a field for explosives, does not require a leash, and will not set off any min...

Temperature-dependent vapor pressures of solid explosives and their byproducts are calculated to an accuracy of 0.32 log units using a modified form of the conductor-like screening model for real solvents (COSMO-RS). Accurate predictions for solids within COSMO-RS require correction for the free energy of fusion as well as other effects such as van der Waals interactions. Limited experimental d...

It can be very challenging to recover explosives traces from porous surfaces, such as clothing and car seats, compared to non-porous surfaces. The contact heater has been developed as a novel instrument designed to recover explosives traces from porous surfaces. Samples are taken by heating and drawing air across a surface, with the air flowing through a sampling cartridge containing adsorbent ...

The multichannel fluorescent sensor array based on nanofibrous membranes loaded with ZnS quantum dots (QDs) was created and demonstrated for the discriminative detection of explosives. The synergistic effect of the high surface-to-volume ratio of QDs, the good permeability of nanofibrous membranes and the differential response introduced by surface ligands was played by constructing the sensing...

This work highlights the rapid detection of nitrate ester explosives and their sugar alcohol precursors by direct analysis in real time mass spectrometry (DART-MS) using an off-axis geometry. Demonstration of the effect of various parameters, such as ion polarity and in-source collision induced dissociation (CID) on the detection of these compounds is presented. Sensitivity of sugar alcohols an...