Hydrogel Based Electrochemical Gas Sensor for Explosive Material Detection

In Thailand, most of the bomb devices produced by the terrorists use trinitrotoluene (TNT) as the main explosive material. Detecting TNT and preventing detonation could save many civilians. Due to its low vapor pressure, TNT requires an extremely high sensitivity method for detection. In this paper, we propose an application of the polyacrylamide gel as an electrochemical gas sensor for explosive material detection. Cyclic voltammetry signals were collected from samples, including TNT, pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), and non-explosive vapors. It was found that a time-derivative calculation of the signal was unique to each chemical, rather than the signal itself, demonstrating utility for the detection of explosive material. This approach for making a gel-based sensor and the data analysis looks promising and requires further validation.