Airports exlosive detectors

[nelson]

Doest any one knows how airports explosive detectors work?
I know they can discriminate between many kinds of explosives, just smelling vapors from diferents kind of explosives. So if this equipment can do this, why ions detectors can´t clasified diferents components?
Thanks
Nelson
ce3llp@mi.cl
santiago, Chile
S.A

[Carl-NC]

They basically work by "smelling"--literally--the compounds (probably nitrates, phosphates, etc.) used in explosives. Different explosives have different signatures.

Dogs used to be the primary sniffers, though I haven't seen any in airports in several years. Now machines d the work. When they check luggage, a swab is rubbed around inside the bag, and then fed into a machine which checks to see if any nitrates were picked up. I understand the machine is phenomenally sensitive, able to detect just a few molecules.

There is a new walk-through sensor in development... you stand in it, and it passes air (possibly highly ionized) over you, then analyzes the air for compounds.

There are some common features amongst all these sensors... dog, swab, and walk-through... you must be at point-blank range, there must be free molecules available for capture, and the molecules must go into a sensor chamber to get detected. So if what you want to detect meets these criteria, then you might be able to use an ion detector.

If you want to have a little fun on your next flight, take a few granules of fertilizer and rub them around the inside of your luggage.

- Carl

[nelson]

Airports explosives detectors

Thanks Carl for your full explanation on explosives detectors.
Another question, do you know if i can modify an old Bounty hunter VLF TR 840, to get better performance from it?
Finally do you know if we can mod a smal fish detector to run it has a metal detector.
Thanks in advance
Regards
Nelson