Voltammetric Electronic Tongue for the Sensing of Explosives and Its Mixtures

Abstract

This chapter presents recent work with electronic tongues, that is sensor analytical systems formed by an array of chemical sensors featuring low selectivity plus a chemometric tool to process the complex multivariate data that is generated. As the generic application covered is related to security, the described systems are those devised to identify and detect explosive compounds. These are characterized from their voltammetric features, whereas a particular fingerprint is used to identify particular compounds alone, or, in a more advanced application, to resolve mixtures of compounds, that is to quantify their presence in mixtures. Two are the main approaches shown, a first from the use of a voltammetric screen printed electrode, and a second one from an array of metallic electrodes. Detected compounds are different nitro-based energetic compounds, and later, also the identification of organic peroxide type compounds.