Special ops explosive material test kit offered to first responders.

* A new trace explosives field-test kit used by special operators in Afghanistan is sharply reducing the amount of time it takes to determine the presence and type of bomb-making materials.

Virginia Beach, Va.-based Morphix Technologies is now marketing its TraceX Explosives Kit to civilian and local law enforcement agencies that routinely encounter improvised explosive devices.

U.S. Special Operations Command funded the development of the kit for its commandos, who are tasked with finding and rooting out insurgent networks involved in making IEDs.

During a raid of a possible bomb-making facility, commandos have to swab surfaces or suspects' hands to determine if there are any traces of chemicals used to make explosives present. They also have to test unknown materials found at the scene to figure out whether they are chemical precursors, said Kim Pricenski, vice president of sales and marketing at the company.

This test was a time-consuming task requiring that the special operator drop a swab into a vial for each of the nine major kinds of explosives. Each test takes nine to 12 minutes to determine if it changes color. If the operator is lucky and guesses correctly, he may get a positive identification on the first try. More often than not, he has to run through several of the tests to get an answer, she said.

SOCOM asked, "How come we can't pull one kit and get all the answers?" Pricenski said.

The command asked Morphix, which specializes in colorimetric chemistry...