photonic
July 3rd, 2002, 02:35 AM
Several weeks ago my friends and I buried about 1 kg of APAN in a hole in his backyard. We were going to use it to remove a lot of dirt that had washed up on a fence. Unfortunately, I first attempt at detonation it failed and we left to go eat. When I came back my friend had dug out the dirt himself and effectivley buried that APAN somewhere never to be found again.
This got me thinking about if there was a way of detecting explosives that doesn't require extremely complicated electronics. Something similar to a metal detector but for explosives. I was thinking that almost all explosives made involve nitration and therefore they might all have a similar "signature." For example, maybe all the vapors of nitrate explosives would be reflective/responsive to a certain wavelength of light. I suppose if this was possible it would already be in use for something like mine detection, but it's worth thinking about. All the detection methods I've read about analyze particles and are exremely complicated(check out <a href="http://www.iontrack.com" target="_blank">http://www.iontrack.com</a> it's amazing). Any ideas as to the possibilty/practicallity of this?
This got me thinking about if there was a way of detecting explosives that doesn't require extremely complicated electronics. Something similar to a metal detector but for explosives. I was thinking that almost all explosives made involve nitration and therefore they might all have a similar "signature." For example, maybe all the vapors of nitrate explosives would be reflective/responsive to a certain wavelength of light. I suppose if this was possible it would already be in use for something like mine detection, but it's worth thinking about. All the detection methods I've read about analyze particles and are exremely complicated(check out <a href="http://www.iontrack.com" target="_blank">http://www.iontrack.com</a> it's amazing). Any ideas as to the possibilty/practicallity of this?