Enzymes Can Neutralyze Explosives.

Spinach may have given Popeye brute strength, but enyzmes found inside the green leaves soon may be used to neutralize dangerous explosives. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash., have discovered that nitroeductase enzymes found in spinach and other natural compounds can eat, digest, and transform explosives such as TNT. The Environmentally Benign Digestion Process (EBDP) reduces dangerous explosives to low-toxicity by-products that can be used by industry or reduced further to harmless elements such as carbon dioxide and water.

The digestion process addresses a dire need of the U.S. military to eliminate, in a cost-effective and secure manner, nearly 500,000 tons of explosives that are stockpiled around the country. "The primary risk of storing explosives at any site is explosions because they create panic, can cause injury, and are a trigger to releasing biological and chemical agents stored nearby," indicates Manish M. Shah, the project's principal investigator. "The challenge is to have a process that is safe, easy to use, environmentally friendly, and preferably mobile. EBDP destroys explosives in a very benign manner."

Enzyme--proteins made of amino acids--are used by the detergent industry as super...