14 DAY TRIAL // Explosives like urea nitrate are like cocaine or heroine: they leave traces. Urea nitrate is an extremely powerful home made explosive, often used by Palestinian terrorists on their explosive belts in Israel, and was also the material employed in the first World Trade Center bombing in New York in 1993.
It can be produced in high quantities right in your backyard, even by uninstructed people, that's why it's preferred for improvised mines and suicide bomber belts. But urea nitrate looks exactly like sugar: colorless and crystalline, that's why it's hard to differentiate it from many inoffensive substances.
Now, a new chemical spray detector developed at the Casali Institute of Applied Chemistry of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by Prof. Joseph Almog can tell which person has just handled urea nitrate, catching terrorists red-handed.
Cotton swabs coming from the hands of a suspect will get a blood-red shade if the person has recently touched urea nitrate. This is a big advance helping forensic researchers. The red molecule results following the chemical interaction between p-dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde and urea nitrate in a neuter environment. The research has been published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences. The part of the research that solved the way the red pigment form was made by student Nitay Lemberger.
There already are instruments employed in finding urea nitrate, but they have some disadvantages like being more complex and expensive. "Our spray can detect minute traces of the improvised explosive on hands of suspects, door handles, luggage containers and vehicles, and it can distinguish between sugar or any innocent looking powder and urea nitrate. The spray detector is easy to use and inexpensive," said Almog.
The new technology could turn into a standard arsenal of law enforcement agencies, security services, and the military at aerial and marine check-points.
"As well as enabling better understanding of the chemistry of urea nitrate, this discovery may also play an important role in legal procedures.", said Almog.