Acro hopes to ride wave of concern about peroxide-based explosives

Haifa, Israel-based Acro Security Technologies is a busy company, signing contracts to provide its flag-ship product, the Peroxide Explosives Tester to armies and police departments in the Unitd States, England, Australia, and India. The company has just signed up a distributor in Turkey. There is a reason for the popularity of the companys solution: Peroxide-based explosives are undetectable by devices which screen for conventional, nitrogen-based explosives such as TNT and nitroglycerin. UPI’s Lea Krauss writes that peroxide-based explosives, familiar on the scene at Israeli bus bombings for nearly thirty years, but they thet cam to thw orld’s attention in 2005 when they were used in the 7 July bombing in London. The problem with peroxide-based explosives is not only that they are difficult to detect, but that they are cheap and readily available. It is estimated that $15 to $17 worth of triacetone triperoxide (TATP) is enough to bring down a 747 airplane.

The company’s current product, PET, is less suited to airport security checks as it is a single-use test, Acro’s CEO, Gadi Aner, told UPI. Acro is also developing the MET, a multiple-use test due on the market in a year, which could screen air passenger luggage, he said. Acro’s ultimate goal is to become “a big homeland security company in the United States,” Aner told UPI. He said that as Acro sees it, the international security industry is a market for “big players, not small companies — so as a small company it’s hard to realize our potential.” Aner said that “Within two to three years, we hope to reach tens of millions of dollars in sales.” Aner said that about 50 percent of the security market’s customers are American, 30 percent come from Europe, and 20 percent from Asia — India, Japan and China.

Acro’s hopes for growth come against the backdrop of decline in Israeli defense and high-tech exports over the past twelve months (the calculations, by the by the business newspaper the Marker, are based on the Jewish calendar, which runs roughly from September through August). The Marker noted that “High-tech’s share of growth in exports has plunged to just 25 percent in the Jewish year of 5767 [ending the first week of September] compared with 80 percent in the preceding three Jewish calendar years, the [Manufacturer’s Association of Israel] said.” Note that the security and defense industry in Israel is typically grouped, for statistics purposes, with other high-tech markets such as software and biotechnology. Still, Acro’s Aner is optimistic: “We feel very good (about what we’re doing). There is a real war between those who want to harm and those who want to prevent harm, and we can make a modest contribution to that,” he said.