Detection of explosives in situ is of major importance in several applications: finding hidden explosives in airport luggage and in mail; screening of personnel for concealed explosives; environmental monitoring of explosives-contaminated sites; and, detection of buried landmines. Mobile and hand-held detectors have been developed for the various applications. They can be subdivided into three classes: vapor and particle detectors; radiation detectors; and, biochemical detectors. An overview of the various explosives detectors and their principles of operation is presented.

No abstract

W With the surge of international terrorism and the increased use of explosives in terrorist attacks, law enforcement agencies throughout the world are faced with the problem of detecting hidden bombs in luggage, mail, vehicles, and aircraft, as well as on suspects. This has become a major analytical problem, which requires highly sensitive, specific, and fast methods for its solution.Another worldwide problem involving explosives is the detection of landmines. According to the United Nations, 120 million unexploded landmines, most of them unmarked, are buried in 70 countries. The development of efficient and cost-effective landmine detection devices has become an urgent worldwide necessity.Because canines have excellent smell-detection capabilities and can perceive very small quantities of odorants, they have been used successfully for sniffing out drugs, agricultural products, fugitives, cadavers, hidden explosives, and

Electrospray ionization (ESI) tandem mass spectrometry collision-induced dissociation (CID) fragmentation processes of a series of nitroaromatic, nitramine and nitrate ester explosives were studied in the negative-ion mode using daughter-ion, parent-ion and neutral loss scans. 2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene (TNT) was characterized by loss of OH, NO and NO 2 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazacyclohexane (RDX) and 1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazacyclooctane (HMX) were characterized by loss of CH 2 NNO 2 , NNO 2 , NO 2 and N 2 O. 2,4,6,N-Tetranitro-N-methylaniline (tetryl) and its hydrolysis product, N-methylpicramide, showed losses of NO 2 , HNO 2 and NNO 2 . Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), glycerol trinitrate (nitroglycerin) and ethylene glycol dinitrate (EGDN) were characterized by loss of CH 2 NO 2 , CH 2 NO, CHNO 2 , ONO 2 , NO 2 and NO. Similarities were found between ESI and negative chemical ionization mass spectra as well as between their CID fragmentation processes. Detection limits of TNT, tetryl, PETN, RDX, and HMX were found to be in the 5-10 pg range.

No abstract