Novel Explosives Identification Taggant Using Rare Elements
- Detailed Technology Description
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- Others
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- *Abstract
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Explosives are widely used commercial products that unfortunately can be misused. To prevent this, tagging explosives in such a manner to identify the batch of explosive to aid in tracking has been investigated for the past 40 years. The nuclear barcode is a novel approach to creating one of these "identification taggants" by adding very low concentrations of rare earth and heavy metals that are scarcely found in nature. This nuclear code is designed to be "read" by performing nuclear activation analysis on post-blast residue that is created after any detonation of explosive material. As currently conceived, the nuclear barcode can provide 25.6 billion distinct codes, which is sufficient to tag commercially produced explosives for the foreseeable future.
- *Principal Investigator
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Name: Catherine Johnson, Assistant Professor
Department:
Name: Carlos Castano, Asst. Professor
Department:
Name: James Seman, Graduate Research Asst.
Department:
- Country/Region
- USA
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