Biobattery Might Sniff Out Explosives

摘要

A bioelectronic sensor the size of a postage stamp could sniff ou1 bombs and other explosives.rnMost commercially available explosives detectors tend to be expensive, bulky and complex -and hence difficult to use in the field. That may change thanks to a new sensor invented by Shelley Minteer and her colleagues at St Louis University in Missouri.rnThe detector is a spin-off from the Minteer group's work torndevelop fuel cells powered by mitochondria, the parts of cells that generate energy by burning a chemical called pyruvate. Produced by the digestion of sugars, pyruvate is the compound that starts the Krebs cycle - the complex series of chemical reactions in cells that releases energy as part of respiration.