INHibitors, Explosives and pRecursor InvesTigation

Criminals, including terrorists, constantly seek new ways to develop, deploy and activate dangerous chemicals ((e.g. explosives, neurotoxins, new drugs). The way those chemicals are manufactured and combined, evolves continuously, which makes the specialized work of law enforcement agencies (LEAs) and reference laboratories in this area a continuous challenge.

Home-made explosives (HMEs) pose a threat to the society. The terrorism timeline consists of multiple phases, where all phases possesses vulnerabilities that can be used to disrupt an attack. Due to the large diversity in precursors, there is no universal approach yet that can be taken to keep a terrorist from using them to make home-made explosives. INHERIT aims to develop a multi-disciplined approach to intervene across multiple phases of the terrorism timeline. With a focus on explosive precursor chemicals, the team will work to develop technologies directed towards thwarting the ability of terrorists to exploit these materials for production of explosives. Methodologies to render chemicals inert, more readily detectable and capable of yielding greater pre-forensic value will all be pursued. Collaboration between the diverse teams developing these interventions will ensure a coordinated holistic approach across all threat materials identified.

The aim for INHERIT is to make explosive production impossible by restricting the access to precursors and detect them. INHERIT aims to intervene across the terrorism timeline through technologies that make precursors inert against misuse, easier to detect, and able to yield greater forensic value. The project objectives are:
• To disrupt or prevent the production of HMEs
• To disrupt or prevent the use of HMEs by markers and their detection
• To tie a perpetrator to the crime by forensics, where the crime is in the preparatory phase
• To assess the countermeasures and further exploit the results

INHERIT will also strive to identify and evaluate new threats. If these new threats are based on precursors and chemical reactions that can be inhibited quite easily, experimental evaluations will be performed to find inhibition compounds or concentration limits, which prevent the successful synthesis of these explosives. The results will be the basis for potential recommendations to policy makers. Markers for precursors, such as fertiliser mixtures, aimed at enhanced detection capability, will be explored and their performance tested. If a viable technology can be developed, with the performance of enhancing security, policy makers will be informed.

The research activities in the project are all enclosed and interrelated in what will be developed into INHERIT’s evaluation Framework. That is a systematic approach, which involves the INHERIT research and development tasks on explosive precursors and their possible countermeasures (alone and combined) to assess at every stage of the project execution a) the level of knowledge acquired b) how effective the countermeasures are and c) the estimated impact by the implementation.

Improvised explosive devices based on peroxide compounds have become a preferred choice among various terrorist organisations worldwide, particularly in the Middle East, Europe, and the USA. These explosives are powerful initiators and may also serve as the main charge. Two popular examples from this group are triacetone triperoxide (TATP) and hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD).
For the research on inhibition, so far in the project, an inhibiton feasability study have been produced that takes into consideration different aspects of concern in order to achieve a working inhibiton solution. There is not only a need for a working inhibitor solution that prevents production of peroxide based explosives it should also not obstruct the normal consumer use that the precursors are needed for. Since the INHERIT project started, a number of experiments for the inhibition of precursors in order to prevent production of HMTD and TATP respectively have been carried out. Different substances has been tested as inhibitors. These have different properties and have been tested in a series of experiments. Typically, the inhibitor is added to the reaction vessel and the result is monitored by visual inspections and also investigated with instrumental analyses.

A set of technical systems for electronic markers and their detection have been aquired. A feasability study on markers and their detection have been produced that takes into consideration different scenarios on how the technology could be used. The first results from this research have also been reported on and this will continue further in-detail to the end of the project where a demonstration of reached capability will be shown to interested stakeholders such as LEAs.

For the efforts in the pre-blast forensics research, a development of methodologies have been in much focus and will continue. Initial results on the analysis of concerned precursors such as perchlorate and chlorate salts and sulphuric and nitric acid have been obtained.

The development of the INHERIT evaluation framework have also been reported on. This includes a number of different scenarios and how to make assessments of the effectiveness of emerging or existing counter-measures in relation to these scenarios.

If research on inhibition and identifying new, not yet restricted, precursors is successful, the EU regulation on marketing and use of explosives precursors needs to be considered for an update. Policy makers will be informed of the outcome of the research results and the assessed effectiveness of emerging countermeasures.

If the capability for markers and detection of precursors such as fertiliser mixtures will be viable and deemed effective and contribute to a new method for the prevention of explosives threats then a possible societal implementation will need to be evaluated from a legal and cost-benefit perspective. Policy makers will be informed of the outcome of the research results and the assessed effectiveness of emerging countermeasures.

Together with the above mentioned emerging counter-measures, novel pre-blast forensic methods will be developed. The developed knowledge will be turned into training materials for LEAs where knowledge transfer will be performed through workshops with such concerned stakeholders.

The INHERIT evaluation framework will be further developed and fine-tuned in period 2 of the project and used in estimations of effectiveness of counter-measures.

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INHERIT (INHibitors, Explosives and pRecursor InvesTigation)

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