Submission + - MIT Chemists Create Fluorescent Bomb Sensor
SoyChemist writes: An MIT graduate student and her adviser have designed a simple test for RDX, the principal ingredient of C-4 explosives. When dissolved in the common solvent acetonitrile and blasted with ultraviolet radiation, the chemical will give off a blue glow if the high explosive is present. In the early 1980s, Army scientists studied how anaerobic bacteria from sewage can destroy RDX. Wired reports that the old Army study was an inspiration for this new sensor. The bacteria in that study used NADH, a coenzyme that is found everywhere in nature, to break down the explosives. The chemical sensor is a VERY distant relative of NADH that reacts with RDX and becomes highly fluorescent. A cool picture of vials filled with the glowing blue liquid appears in the MIT Technology Review.