Nanomaterials (Apr 2022)

Detection of Nitroaromatic Explosives in Air by Amino-Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes

  • Claudio Ferrari,
  • Giovanni Attolini,
  • Matteo Bosi,
  • Cesare Frigeri,
  • Paola Frigeri,
  • Enos Gombia,
  • Laura Lazzarini,
  • Francesca Rossi,
  • Luca Seravalli,
  • Giovanna Trevisi,
  • Riccardo Lolli,
  • Lucrezia Aversa,
  • Roberto Verucchi,
  • Nahida Musayeva,
  • Muhammad Alizade,
  • Sevinj Quluzade,
  • Teimur Orujov,
  • Francesco Sansone,
  • Laura Baldini,
  • Francesco Rispoli

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12081278
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 8
p. 1278

Abstract

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Nitroaromatic explosives are the most common explosives, and their detection is important to public security, human health, and environmental protection. In particular, the detection of solid explosives through directly revealing the presence of their vapors in air would be desirable for compact and portable devices. In this study, amino-functionalized carbon nanotubes were used to produce resistive sensors to detect nitroaromatic explosives by interaction with their vapors. Devices formed by carbon nanotube networks working at room temperature revealed trinitrotoluene, one of the most common nitroaromatic explosives, and di-nitrotoluene-saturated vapors, with reaction and recovery times of a few and tens of seconds, respectively. This type of resistive device is particularly simple and may be easily combined with low-power electronics for preparing portable devices.

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