Trace detection of some nitro-explosives using thermal mediated immunochemical defragmented method

A new immunoassay format using thermally induced defragmentation of some nitro-explosives with a high degree of selectivity is reported. Specific antibodies against three widely used explosives, 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), 1,3,5-trinitroperhydro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX), and pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) were generated by designing suitable haptens using geometry optimization modules. These in-house generated antibodies were used in a newly developed thermal mediated immunochemical biosensing technique which involves the binding of specific antibodies to respective nitro-explosives on a microtiter strip, resulting in the formation of specific immunocomplex. Heating the specific immuno-complex formed on microtiter wells resulted in thermal lysis of nitro-explosives to generate nitrite ions. These ions react with Griess reagent to form a colored chromophore which correlates the concentration of individual explosive in the sample. The present work fulfills the need for an improved explosive detecting system that is highly specific and capable of quickly determining the presence of nitrate containing explosives from a mixture pool.