ON-SITE DETECTION OF TNT WITH A PORTABLE FIBER OPTIC BIOSENSOR

A portable fiber optic biosensor was employed for onsite analysis of t he explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT) in groundwater. Two military bases, Umatilla Army Depot and Naval Submarine Base Banger, contain sites wh ere the groundwater has been contaminated with TNT. Samples from monit oring wells at these sites were split and analyzed on-site using the f iber optic biosensor and in a laboratory by U.S. EPA SW-846 Method 833 0 (reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography). The fiber op tic biosensor is small (6.5 in. x 4.5 in. x 3.5 in., 2.5 lb), portable , and able to monitor four optical probes simultaneously. A competitiv e, fluorescent immunoassay was performed on the surface of the optical fiber probe. The fiber optic biosensor was able to detect 20 mu g/L T NT in less than 16 min simultaneously on four probes.