4 ms·

I think it is an unsolvable problem. There's nothing particular about explosives that makes them easy to discriminate from non-explosives. I'd love to be prove

• philipkglass 8y ago
  The vast majority of explosives can be quickly differentiated from non-explosives by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The main practical impediment to detecting concealed explosive material is that some of the explosive substance needs to pass through the GC-MS to be detected. So an explosive with extremely low vapor pressure (e.g. pure PETN) will not be readily detected this way. Plastic explosives made from PETN are more readily detectable, because the plasticizers are more volatile than PETN itself. GC-MS also won't work if the explosive is hermetically sealed so that none of it can reach the detector. There are also methods based on e.g. terahertz spectroscopy, but AFAIK GC-MS is the most specific and common method of identifying explosive materials.
  • facetube 8y ago
    They actually test for both components of binary explosives in the US TSA. Source: a TSA agent, while he was going through all of my things because I guess I touched a cleaning product with ammonia in it or something.