Issue 1, 2016

An optoelectronic nose for identification of explosives

Abstract

Compact and portable methods for identification of explosives are increasingly needed for both civilian and military applications. A portable optoelectronic nose for the gas-phase identification of explosive materials is described that uses a highly cross-reactive colorimetric sensor array and a handheld scanner. The array probes a wide range of chemical reactivities using 40 chemically responsive colorimetric indicators, including pH sensors, metal–dye salts, redox-sensitive chromogenic compounds, solvatochromic dyes, and other chromogenic indicators. Sixteen separate analytes including common explosives, homemade explosives, and characteristic explosive components were differentiated into fourteen separate classes with a classification error rate of <1%. Portable colorimetric array sensing could represent an important, complementary part of the toolbox used in practical applications of explosives detection and identification.

Graphical abstract: An optoelectronic nose for identification of explosives

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
20 7 2015
Accepted
22 9 2015
First published
07 10 2015
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2016,7, 199-206

Author version available

An optoelectronic nose for identification of explosives

J. R. Askim, Z. Li, M. K. LaGasse, J. M. Rankin and K. S. Suslick, Chem. Sci., 2016, 7, 199 DOI: 10.1039/C5SC02632F

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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