Analyst (Cambridge UK) 2008-05-01

Reliable, rapid and simple voltammetric detection of urea nitrate explosive.

Avi Cagan, Donglai Lu, Karel Cizek, Jeff La Belle, Joseph Wang

Index: Analyst 133(5) , 585-7, (2008)

Full Text: HTML

Abstract

A highly selective and rapid electrochemical assay of the improvised explosive urea nitrate (UN) is reported. The method involves a short ( approximately 10 s) acid-catalyzed reaction of UN with 4-nitrotoluene (NT) followed by a rapid ( approximately 2 s) square-wave voltammetric (SWV) detection of the 2,4-dinitrotoluene (DNT) product. The new protocol offers great promise for a reliable field detection of UN, with significant advantages of speed, sensitivity, portability, simplicity, and cost.