Explosives Detection in Residential Building Ventilation Systems

One approach to locating bombs is analytical monitoring with portable spectroscopy systems. Such a technique needs to work in adverse environments, be amenable to use by field operators, and, given the sensitive nature of the target materials, should have an extremely rapid response time with no false negatives. Our goals of the Phase II Program are to compile a comprehensive SERS library of explosives and related bomb materials as well as to optimize EIC SERS sensing elements for market. We will achieve reproducible and selective detection of explosives using novel SERS structures that exhibit an inherently uniform surface morphology, leading to rapid, reproducible manufacturing. This work will include an extensive set of analytical figures of merit including ROC curves for the concentration-dependent performance of our sensors at low signal-to-noise ratios. We will optimize our sensors for low limits of detection and establish the level of sensitivity in the presence of matrices of realistic field interferents. The Phase III Program will focus on a SERS nose system for the detection of explosives for a broad range of potential CONOPs.