Researchers at Tel Aviv University in Israel and nanotechnology company Tracense have teamed up to develop an electronic chip that uses microscopic sensors to find explosives.
The device is able to detect a few molecules per quadrillion in the air, even if they are 16 meters away, according to Tech Times.
Most of today's security systems in airports look to find molecules in the air with ion mobility spectrometry, which measures how fast molecules move through an electric field. Security systems can only detect a few molecules per billion with this technique.
The new chip is currently still in the prototype stage and is designed to find traces of explosives that could be hidden by stronger chemicals, Discovery News reported.
"Different explosives species display a distinctive pattern of interaction with the nanosensing array, thus allowing for a simple and straightforward identification of the molecule under test," Professor Fernando Patolsky and colleagues wrote in the journal Nature Communications.
The authors of the study said current detection practices usually need bulky equipment and slow sample preparation. These methods can only detect a small amount of explosive types, and can only do so at higher concentrations.
The new chip is capable of find much more explosives chemicals than most of today's bomb detectors, Tech Times reported. It is sensitive enough that it can find such chemicals from a range of 13 to 16 feet.
The research team tested the chip's accuracy by having it detect TNT, RCX, HMX, and other kinds of explosives used both commercially and by the military. The device was able to effectively find HMTD and TATP, chemicals use to make improvised explosives that are hard to detect.
The tests were conducted with only five seconds of exposure. In some cases, the tests were held in areas contaminated with cigarette smoke.
"These promising results demonstrate the potential capability of our sensing platform for the remote detection of explosive species," the team wrote, Discovery News reported. "The development of novel approaches for the sensitive and rapid detection of these hazardous molecules is of great importance in the field of homeland security."
