Hi JP, I was reading her blog earlier about the guys buying all the dispoable cell phones.
This was interesting.......I guess we will never be able to carry on liquid items again. I would miss my eye drops and bottled water, so I won't be going anywhere by air again.
Andy Oppenheimer, editor of Jane's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence Directory, said: "There are a lot of homemade mixtures you can concoct from some very common materials that are innocent in themselves.
"We are talking about common, everyday chemicals that are used in perfumes, cosmetics, drain cleaner, batteries, or could for example be stolen from school labs.
"These materials are easy to obtain and hard to detect, and could be smuggled in small amounts in small containers because it doesn't take much to blow an aircraft up."
Mr Oppenheimer added that the ingredients would have to be mixed together in the correct proportions and that the resulting mixture would be very unstable and sensitive to shock or heat.
Terrorist gangs have long been aware of the potential of combining common ingredients including liquids to create homemade explosives.
Police believe acetone peroxide triacetone triperoxide (TATP) was the home-made explosive used in London on July 7 last year in the attacks that killed 56 people, including four suicide bombers, on Tube trains and a bus.
TATP is made with commonly available chemicals such as sulphuric acid, which is used to clean drains, and hydrogen peroxide, which is used in hair dyes, and acetone.
Prof Hans Michels, an explosives expert in the department of chemical engineering at Imperial College London, said: "Liquid explosives are very, very sensitive and there are many different types, but we could well be talking about nitroglycerine which has been around for many years.
"It is easy to make and you do not need very much. It can be colourless, pale yellow or brown but you can add colour to make it resemble anything you like, such as fizzy drinks or even baby food.
"In a handbag under an X ray machine it would just appear that you were carrying a harmless liquid, there would be no way of picking it up.
"And once on the plane it would only need a small spark to ignite it. The bomber would probably attempt to get close to the hull and cause a big bang, easily enough to crack the shell and bring down the plane."
Dr Clifford Jones, reader in engineering, University of Aberdeen, said a colourless liquid fuel component of an explosive, such as gasoline or kerosene, could be disguised as mineral water and an oxidant such as ammonium nitrate could be passed off as sugar.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=T2XBH3WHOTGKLQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/08/10/uchemical.xml