Low Cost Distributed Explosive Detection Device

Automated vapor sampling detectors could potentially provide a detection capability for high vapor pressure explosives such as nitroglycerine (NG). However, for materials such as HMX and RDX, the equilibrium vapor pressures are at least four orders of magnitude lower than conventional trinitro-toluene (TNT) explosives, making detection based on sampling of airborne vapor difficult for all of the explosives without concentration. MicroStructure Technologies (MicroST) has undertaken a mission to develop small, compact, microstructured array detectors for explosive vapors (both nitrogen and peroxide-based materials). The upstream micropillars on the microstructured array have a high surface area and the vapors are adsorbed. The laser energy is coupled by fiber optic into the microarray to desorb a concentrated pulse of concentrated explosive vapor. A Microstructured Array Sampler (MAS) with an inorganic polymer coating as a sensing element to detect the concentrated vapors. The use of the inorganic polymers for explosive detection on an air-sampling microarray for confirmation is innovative. The key innovation of the proposed approach is to use a chip-based laser to selectively desorb a concentrated energetic sample onto sensing polymers coated onto a microarray. Lastly, the alarm signal from the microarray is sent wirelessly to reveal the type of explosive detected.