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Description
The worldwide use of nitro-explosives in the military and industrial applications has led to widespread environmental contamination. Only after World War I and II in the Baltic Sea, vast amounts of nitro-explosives was dumped, including highly toxic 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) and 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX). Only in the vicinity of Germany, there are 1.6 million metric tons of sunken conventional munition explosives. Over time, metal shields in which explosives have been deposited begin to corrode, which results in increasing uncontrolled emissions of these pollutants into the environment. From these reasons, nitro-explosives and their decomposition products are widespread in the environment, especially in marine and inland water. However, the detection of conventional explosives in natural ecosystems is still an analytical challenge.
In this project, we propose a novel electrochemical sensing platform – NITROsens for rapid nitro-explosive compounds detection in both sea and freshwater. The limit of detection of NITROsens platform will be below the lifetime health advisory limit of nitro-explosive in drinking water, i.e. 2.0 ppb. The sensor will make it possible to quickly confirm the presence of explosive compounds in the aquatic environment. Hence, it can be successfully used for screening measurements to estimate environmental pollution with high-energetic nitro-compound. The sensor can also be used to assess the degree of leakage of explosives from the dumped after World War I and II barrels.