I'm looking for some starting-out information on detection of peroxide based explosives (like the ones brutally used previously against civilians). everything on the internet is too basic and everything on Web Of Science is too far from applications. specific questions you may have answers to:

1. what are the forms of these explosives? i wouldn't think they're hydrogen peroxides, so what are they?

2. how is detection possible spectroscopically/instrumentation-wise? i'm not talking like a catalase assay, i think that would be horribly inefficient in an airport line. spectroscopists? why wouldn't GC-MS work? I don't think a peroxide would do very well in either one of these (probably destroy the GC column and get obliterated in the MS), but do you know why/can you give me a link to a paper?

3. all explosions are radical reactions... is this true or false. one of my classmates told me this, but i don't see how it could be true.

please, no conspiracy theories, i'm just interested in the science behind these things.

Some stuff here..
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...tntsniffer.html
-C2.

Hydrogen peroxide is essentially water with weakly bounded oxygen. It is H2O2 instead of H2O. It readily breaks down to give off oxygen. This allows combustion or explosions to occur without much air, since the peroxide supplies the needed oxygen. If peroxide is mixed with certain compounds, all the oxygen needed is stored in the liquid solution. One only needs to trigger the peroxide to quickly release the oxygen. Chain reactions, like explosion can be break down the peroxide, leading to self feeding explosions.

Low concentration solutions of peroxide is often used to treat minor injuries and can be used as an oral rinse. It is sort of a cool experiment. If one has a minor cut, pour some store bought peroxide on it. The open tissue wll act like a catalyst causing the oxygen to be released. The visual result is a foaming action caused by the rapid release of oxygen bubbles. If one did this each day, eventully, the foaming action will decrease and then stop upon contact with cut. The catalytic action of the cut lowers and then stops upon healing.

Commercially available hydrogen peroxide is only about 4% peroxide the rest is common old water, peroxide at 90%+ makes ideal rocket fuel. Pure peroxide will cause most metals and many salts to combust and some very rapidly.

All chemicals give off some emissions look up Nitrous Oxide detectors on Google or try www.wpi-europe they sell them. Another science forum I visit had a discussion about this type of thing but the discussion became too involved and they were all but passing around instructions how to make these explosives, something I think we should avoid.