Analysis of explosives' precursors by means of a portable Raman spectrometer

Raman spectroscopy is in the scientific community an accepted and applied noninvasive technique, which can be used to identify many classes of potentially explosive materials, based on vibrational molecular information. This technique has demonstrated to be a useful tool for the identification and characterization of explosives that are of interest for forensic services and security, and is used due to the necessity for a fast identification of potentially explosive materials of homemade manufacture, which can be made using chemical agents available in the market. This technique allows the identification of precursory substances, without direct handling, nor exposure to any potentially harmful environment, providing high personal security in the process. In this work, the analysis of some commonly used precursors for explosives' production was done, by means of a portable Raman spectrometer, in a fast way and using transparent sample-containers.