Mabus
Wiki Master
Posts: 238
Registered: 3-11-2013
Member Is Offline
Mood: Energetic
|
|
Project turns to sensors in sewers to catch bomb-makers
http://phys.org/news/2013-11-sensors-sewers-bomb-makers.html
| Quote: |
(Phys.org) —A European research group has an answer for catching people who aim to make explosive devices at home. Waste products that go down the
drain deliver clues. Sensors that can identify these ingredients and sound an alarm are the solution, Bomb-making residue in city sewers may be an
important signal for finding bomb-makers out, thanks to special sensors placed in sewers. A project called EMPHASIS aims to do just that. Emphasis is
an EU-funded project of team members who are working on a method of sniffing out home-made bomb setups through chemical sensors placed in city sewer
systems. Under the scenario, if the sensors do find traces of explosives, an alarm is sounded, and a special police team swings into action with a
with a high resolution sensing unit, conducting a search to pinpoint the site.
The sensors are designed to pick up signs of the precursors of dangerous explosive devices, such as reagents and reaction-breakdown products.
The concept targets those who try to make explosive devices with use of their private kitchens or bathrooms, where ingredients dumped down the drains
through toilets, sinks, and tubs leak into the sewers. Substances of a threatening nature, once detected, become registered information sent to a
command center.
This concept is being explored in an EU-funded project called Emphasis. According to its project page, its reason for being is the detection of
production of explosives. Nine project partners are carrying out work for such a system, The name Emphasis stands for Explosive Material Production
Hidden Agile Search and Intelligence System, which further explains its mission. That mission is to test a system concept for the purpose of detecting
the illicit production of explosives and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in urban areas.
Hans Önnerud, a research scientist, is the project manager. Onnerud is with the Swedish Defense Research Agency (FOI) in Sweden, one of Europe's
research institutes for defense and security. According to a report on Friday in New Scientist, an Emphasis project presentation was delivered at last
month's International Symposium on the Analysis and Detection of Explosives (ISADE) in The Netherlands, where Onnerud's team said their tests in the
lab were successful. The Emphasis sensors were developed and tested on faeces-rich wastewater in the lab and will be tested in sewers next year.
Last year, FOI exhibited five projects that FOI was coordinating relating to preventing the manufacture of home made bombs, the location of bomb
factories, the neutralization of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and the development of new methods for a forensic analysis of a bombing scene, at
the trade fair Security Essen, in Germany. A bomb sniffer sensor was one of the projects showcased as well as a biodetector based on honey bees for
the detection of explosives.
|
So how will this affect the amateur chemist?
[Edited on 3-11-2013 by Mabus]
|
|
|
Metacelsus
International Hazard
Posts: 2531
Registered: 26-12-2012
Location: Boston, MA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Double, double, toil and trouble
|
|
Most amateur chemists do not make bombs, so they will be fine. However, a police raid would be unwelcome, so I wouldn't dump waste that contains
chemicals that could possibly be used for explosives production down the drain.
I wonder if this will pick up people taking nitroglycerin heart medication.
|
|
|
bfesser
Resident Wikipedian
Posts: 2114
Registered: 29-1-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
If I'm not mistaken, similar analytical techniques have been used in the past to study birth control, drug use, etc. There's a detectable level of
<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30741658/#.Uncc0N__6b4" target="_blank">cocaine in the air</a> <img src="../scipics/_ext.png" />
in Madrid.
|
|
|
Simbani
Hazard to Self
Posts: 50
Registered: 12-12-2012
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Great idea, now everyone will dump their waste into nature!
|
|
|
vulture
Forum Gatekeeper
Posts: 3330
Registered: 25-5-2002
Location: France
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Any reasonable chemist does not dump their waste down the drain without prior selection and/or neutralization. 
I would like to know what exactly they are detecting; nitrates or nitrate esters would lead to a lot of false alarms and raids on farms.
One shouldn't accept or resort to the mutilation of science to appease the mentally impaired.
|
|
|
phlogiston
International Hazard
Posts: 1375
Registered: 26-4-2008
Location: Neon Thorium Erbium Lanthanum Neodymium Sulphur
Member Is Offline
Mood: pyrophoric
|
|
I can't image this will be used on a massive scale. Very expensive to implement/maintain and easy to circumvent. Also likely to be susceptible to
false alarms.
-----
"If a rocket goes up, who cares where it comes down, that's not my concern said Wernher von Braun" - Tom Lehrer |
|
|
testimento
Hazard to Others
Posts: 351
Registered: 10-6-2013
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Many wastewaters contain amides, nitrates, nitrites and several other types of chemicals that could be from explosives residue, but as well from any
ordinary activity. Urine contains urea, feces contain up to 60% of their dry weight of amino acids, etc. Imagine somebody spreading nitrate
fertilizers to his yard and then washing the tools with water down the drain - and state terror force drives a tank through his property.
It is possible to track it down, if the flow is continuous, so the source drains waste liquids from large scale process, but I know for a fact that
the water plant carries out systematic analysis and once it detected a source of some very very bad medial condition (I dont honestly remember what it
was, some stuff like ebola or smallpox etc. but some illness that was extinct in the western world nowadays) and they attempted to track it to the
source to tell the person he has it so they could heal him. We all know most people take a dump every day, and yet they weren't able to trace it.
So, for a chemist, I wouldn't be so afraid pouring few liters of some waste liquor down the drain. Personally I won't pour any process waste down
sewer because of this and because of the smell and toxicity.
|
|
|
Wizzard
Hazard to Others
Posts: 337
Registered: 22-3-2010
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
I'd only be concerned with flushing salts and ANY nitrates - Ammonia (cat urine), urea (normal urine), and a few other things likely won't be traced
on a positive : false positive basis.
But then still, I'll still be neutralizing and dumping into kitty litter.
|
|
|
Agricola
Harmless
Posts: 42
Registered: 28-10-2013
Location: Brazil
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
The Phys.org link only mentions explosives, but the New Scientist link it provides says the sensors are supposed to detect drug manufacture also. The second link also says this is part of a 4.5 million euros
project.
I wonder if pseudoephedrine or codeine medication use would give false positives.
|
|
|
elementcollector1
International Hazard
Posts: 2684
Registered: 28-12-2011
Location: The Known Universe
Member Is Offline
Mood: Molten
|
|
This whole thing sounds like a waste of taxpayer dollars - as mentioned above, there are tons of false positives. Also, what about the people who use
cold packs and then dump them down the drain?
Elements Collected:52/87
Latest Acquired: Cl
Next in Line: Nd
|
|
|
Mabus
Wiki Master
Posts: 238
Registered: 3-11-2013
Member Is Offline
Mood: Energetic
|
|
Yeah, false positives will doom most of the analyses. And then there's the fact that most of the cleaning products that you use and pour down the
drain already contain compounds that will give even more false positives (bleach itself disproportionates into chlorate e.g.).
|
|
|
phlogiston
International Hazard
Posts: 1375
Registered: 26-4-2008
Location: Neon Thorium Erbium Lanthanum Neodymium Sulphur
Member Is Offline
Mood: pyrophoric
|
|
If they implement this, then the next step will be to ban bleach, cold packs, and urine.
-----
"If a rocket goes up, who cares where it comes down, that's not my concern said Wernher von Braun" - Tom Lehrer |
|
|
bfesser
Resident Wikipedian
Posts: 2114
Registered: 29-1-2008
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
I haven't read the papers, but somehow I doubt they'd be looking at nitrates... even an undergrad in Intro. Anal. Chem. would know that that's a dumb
idea.
|
|
|
BromicAcid
International Hazard
Posts: 3227
Registered: 13-7-2003
Location: Wisconsin
Member Is Offline
Mood: Rock n' Roll
|
|
Back when I did chemistry at home all of my experiments were done in the back yard. I had a few bags of marble chips dumped near the water faucet.
Whatever I was working with was dumped onto the marble chips to neutralize (I hardly ever worked with bases) and rinsed out atop the marble. Point
is, nothing of mine went down the sink. I never really thought of putting things into the sewer either, figured it would be bad for the pipes.
|
|
|
Fantasma4500
International Hazard
Posts: 1677
Registered: 12-12-2012
Location: Dysrope (aka europe)
Member Is Offline
Mood: dangerously practical
|
|
if this ever becomes reality i would get a good block of military grade C4 and dump into water all over large towns.. bam.. have fun with 24 7 false
alarms
goddamn offensive that they really want to make something that is not a problem into a problem
|
|
|
Agricola
Harmless
Posts: 42
Registered: 28-10-2013
Location: Brazil
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Here are two papers on the subject by the EMPHASIS project manager itself, Hans Önnerud. The author's e-mail is printed on the papers.
The files are too big to attach to this message so I am providing Media Fire links. This is the same service S. C. Wack uses to share his library.
| Quote: | Localisation of threat substances in urban society - LOTUS: a viable tool for finding illegal bomb factories in cities
Download
Results of dispersion experiments and dispersion modelling of explosives, drugs, and their precursors will be presented. The dispersion of chemicals
evolving during preparation of home made explosives and a drug produced in an improvised manner in an ordinary kitchen has been measured. Experiments
with concentration of hydrogen peroxide have been performed during spring and summer of 2009 and 2010 and further experiments with concentration of
hydrogen peroxide, synthesis and drying of TATP and Methamphetamine are planned for the spring and summer of 2011.
Results from the experiments are compared to dispersion modelling to achieve a better understanding of the dispersion processes and the resulting
substances and amounts available for detection outside the kitchen at distances of 10-30 m and longer. Typical concentration levels have been
determined as a function of environmental conditions.
The experiments and modelling are made as a part of the LOTUS project aimed at detecting and locating the illicit production of explosives and drugs
in an urban environment. It can be concluded that the proposed LOTUS system concept, using mobile automatic sensors, data transfer, location via
GSM/GPS for on-line detection of illicit production of explosive or precursors to explosives and drugs is a viable approach and is in accordance with
historical and today’s illicit bomb manufacturing.
The overall objective and approach of the LOTUS project will also be presented together with two more projects called PREVAIL and EMPHASIS both aiming
at hindering or finding illicit production of home made explosives. |
| Quote: | Localisation of threat substances in urban society - LOTUS: tomorrow’s system for finding illicit manufacturing of drugs and home made
explosives
Download
Results of dispersion experiments and dispersion modelling of explosives, drugs, and their precursors will be presented. The dispersion of chemicals
evolving during preparation of home made explosives and a drug produced in an improvised manner in an ordinary kitchen has been measured. Experiments
with concentration of hydrogen peroxide have been performed during spring and summer of 2009 and 2010 and further experiments with concentration of
hydrogen peroxide, synthesis and drying of TATP and Methamphetamine are planned for the spring and summer of 2011.
Results from the experiments are compared to dispersion modelling to achieve a better understanding of the dispersion processes and the resulting
substances and amounts available for detection outside the kitchen at distances of 10-30 m and more. Typical concentration levels have been determined
as a function of environmental conditions.
The experiments and modelling are made as a part of the LOTUS project aimed at detecting and locating the illicit production of explosives and drugs
in an urban environment. It can be concluded that the proposed LOTUS system concept, using mobile automatic sensors, data transfer, location via
GSM/GPS for on-line detection of illicit production of explosive or precursors to explosives and drugs is a viable approach and is in accordance with
historical and today’s illicit bomb manufacturing. |
|
|
|
NeonPulse
Hazard to Others
Posts: 417
Registered: 29-6-2013
Location: The other end of the internet.
Member Is Offline
Mood: Isolated from Reality! For Real this time....
|
|
i doubt this would be a feasible way to detect such activities. how could they pinpoint a single property out of the so many who use the sewers. and
the parts of chemicals use as opposed to the amount of waste water and other materials would dillute them beyond an amount that could be detected
reliably. if they wanted to catch people doing things like bomb making and drugs then they should spend the money on more surveilance...
|
|
|
chemrox
International Hazard
Posts: 2961
Registered: 18-1-2007
Location: UTM
Member Is Offline
Mood: LaGrangian
|
|
anybody flushing chemical waste down the drain deserves a public spanking!
"When you let the dumbasses vote you end up with populism followed by autocracy and getting back is a bitch." Plato (sort of)
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
