A surface drug test might be designed to work with greatest efficiency on the surface of a human body, or it might deliver the best results when used on a hard surface. The following article will examine the sort of surface drug test that falls in the latter category. It should accomplish a dual purpose. It should serve to underline the growing need for more information on various ways to improve such tests. The following article should also help the reader to better understand the many challenges that face our authorities, those who devote the bulk of their attention to our present-day security concerns.

The U.S. Government has discovered that it needs top-quality chemists in the Department of Homeland Security. In fact, knowledge of chemistry appears crucial to the achievement of an international effort to keep the world safe from terrorism. At the present time, much research in the U.S. and in other countries blessed with access to a large collection of scientists has centered on the development of a better surface drug test.

On July 7, 2005 the world learned that any existing surface drug test did an inadequate job of locating terrorists with explosive devices. On that day four bombs went off in the public transportation system of London. Since that day it has been reported that those London bombs were peroxide-based bombs, explosives that had to be stored and carried in a cool container.

It appears that the London terrorists carried at least a few of their bombs in an ice chest. That fact points-up the planning that went into those London bombings. That fact, however, fails to reveal the outline for a sure-proof surface drug test.

Authorities in London have not disclosed how they came to realize that those had been peroxide-based bombs. Still, it is obvious that those same authorities will want to develop a better way to detect such bombs. They will no doubt turn to chemists to develop an improved surface drug test. A good surface drug test has the ability to detect the chemicals in an explosive device.

Information on the chemistry of explosives demonstrates the need for at least three different types of surface tests. One such test could detect peroxide-based bombs, i.e. bombs similar to those mentioned above. Yet additional tests would be needed for the detection of other types of explosives.

The detection of chlorate-based bombs could require the development of two different tests—one for bombs with sodium chlorate and another for bombs with potassium chlorate. The sodium-based bombs contain chemicals that might stick together in a humid environment. The potassium-based bombs contain colorless chemicals, chemicals that only a chemical assay could detect.

Chemists face a real challenge as they seek to develop a surface drug test that can detect nitrate-based explosives. Nitrates have three characteristics that can impede the effectiveness of a surface drug test. They contain a marked polarity, an especially low molecular weight and a high volatility.

Those same characteristics increase the appeal of the nitrate-based bomb, at least in the eye of the bomb maker. A chemical with a low molecular weight is easier to work with than a heavy chemical.  A chemical with a high volatility can make a good “stink” bomb. For example, the explosion of a nitrate-based bomb can release ammonia.

For those above reasons, nitrate-based explosives are the choice of many troublemakers, who hope to assemble the now familiar, improvised explosive devices. Aware of the harm inflicted by the users of the nitrate-based explosives, chemists constantly strive to overcome the challenges posed by those same bombs. They know that detection of such bombs could save many lives.