Bionic Spinach; an Effective Bomb Detector

Scientists turn their inspiration on one of Mother Nature’s nutritious foods to build an advanced military defense system against concealed explosives. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology uses the humble spinach to detect land mines and other buried munitions.

The co-author and a Professor at MIT, Michael Strano said, “The plants could be used for defense applications”.

Scientists from MIT in Cambridge install tiny tubes which are part of the plant’s leaves. The tubes are designed to pick up chemicals found in explosives and can connect the data to a computer. It then transmits immediate findings to a mobile phone or other handheld devices.

How it works

Once scientists implanted the nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes in the plant’s leaves they dispensed the nitro-aromatics into the water. The spinach only takes about 10 minutes to fully absorb the chemicals from the roots going to the leaves.

To get the findings, experts point a laser directly to the leaf. This directs the implanted nanotubes to produce ‘near-infrared’ luminous light. Using an  inexpensive Raspberry Pi computer or a smartphone with a deactivated infrared filter, scientists can detect the light.

Professor Strano said on the BBC website that their “paper outlines how one could engineer plants like this to detect virtually anything”. He pointed out that their research confirms that exact principle.

Bionic plants as monitoring devices

Prof. Strano invented other remarkable uses of carbon nanotubes which act as sensors to detect hydrogen peroxide and other gas compounds. The nanotube changes its luminosity when the subject particle bonds with the polymer material.

He said plants can also act to “monitor public spaces for terrorism-related activities since we show both water and airborne detection”. Strano confirms that since plants can sip groundwater it can detect “buried munitions or waste that contains nitro-aromatics.”

In a laboratory setup, the experiment shows a significant result in which the spinach can detect buried munitions chemical compounds 1 meter away. MIT Scientists are working on how to expand the distance of the plant’s detection for future endeavors.

Nature Materials, a science journal magazine published the entire ‘bionic spinach’ research of MIT.

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