Hebrew University: Spray for detecting home made explosives

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A scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has developed a chemical spray detector for picking up traces of the home-made explosive urea nitrate. When sprayed on swabs taken from the hands of terrorist suspects the spray turns bright red in the presence of urea nitrate. The development is the work of Joseph Almog of the Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry.

Urea nitrate is a colourless crystalline substance that looks very much like sugar, making it very difficult to detect. The development of a colour test is therefore likely to be a significant aid to forensic scientists. The test is based on the formation of a red dye in the chemical reaction between p-dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde and urea nitrate under neutral conditions.

Although instruments exist that can detect urea nitrate, they are much more sophisticated and quite expensive. According to Almog, his spray can detect minute traces of the improvised explosive on hands of suspects, door handles, luggage containers and vehicles, and it can distinguish between sugar or any innocent looking powder and urea nitrate.

Almog, who says the spray detector is easy to use and inexpensive, sees it being adopted by law enforcement agencies, security services, and the military and at checkpoints at air and sea ports.