Portendo teams with Swedish government to develop explosives detectors
Deal signals growing European awareness of terrorist risk; Swedish Defense Research Agency will help improve Portendo’s nSure sensors; in return, Portendo will help FOI with their own ESSEX technology
Explosives detection: it’s not just for Americans and Israelis anymore. The train bombings in Madrid and London, in 2004 and 2005 respectively, have had the predicatable effect of concentrating the minds of European security officials, and numerous companies are rushing in to lend a hand. Stockholm, Sweden-based Portendo AB (it’s offices are in the Värtahamnen, or “docklands” neighborhood) is the latest to the game, having signed a collaboration agreement with FOI, the Swedish Defense Research Agency, to develop the next generation of explosives detectors. Key to the endeavor will be Portendo’s nSure SERS active surfaces, which the company claims “give rise to a Raman Enhancement by several orders of magnitude.”
Further development of nSure is needed, but while that continues FOI hopes Portendo can help commercialize a product of its own — the ESSEX detection technique developed by government scientists. “The collaboration with FOI gives us access to world-class expertise in explosives research as well as providing us with an extremely well-equipped laboratory for testing our nSure technology on a range of explosive substances,” said Pierre Strömbeck, Portendo’s Managing Director.
-read more in this SecurityPark report
