MEDIA CONTACT: Bill Loftus, (208) 885-7694, bloftus@uidaho.edu
STORY CONTACT: Ron Satterfield, (208) 885-4550, rsatterfield@uidaho.edu

MOSCOW, Idaho —— A technology developed at the University of Idaho will neutralize explosives used for seismic exploration. It already is used to clean up areas contaminated by a banned herbicide and munitions residues.

The SABRE technology, recently licensed to explosives manufacturer Austin Powder, also holds promise in military applications such as bombs or landmines that can disarm themselves using a biodegradation process.

Ron and Don Crawford, both professors in the Department of Microbiology, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Idaho, developed the process. Ron Crawford serves as director of the UI Environmental Biotechnology Institute.

SABRE relies on a patented mix of microbes and controlled conditions to safely break down the nitroaromatic compounds that are the basis for explosives and some herbicides.

Austin Powder will use SABRE in the manufacture of seismic charges, which are used most commonly for oil and gas exploration. The charges typically weigh 3 to 5 pounds. SABRE will render harmless charges that fail to detonate because the microbes will decompose the residues and clean up any remaining munitions residues. Austin Power officials expect to begin shipping by year'’s end the first charges produced with the new technology.

State and federal environmental regulators have devoted increasing attention to the cleanup of explosives residues and herbicide contaminated soils. Some nitrogen compounds resulting from uncontrolled breakdown of nitroaromatics under natural conditions are known to cause cancer.

U.S. military officials have also conducted extensive testing of the SABRE process to clean up weapons production and testing sites. At the Bangor (Wash.) Naval Submarine Base, a pilot-scale test in 1994 reduced concentrations of explosives in soils to far below the treatment goal.

The process has also been successfully tested at the Iowa Army Ammunitions Plant and Yorktown Naval Weapons Station.

The Austin Powder licensing agreement may stimulate interest in SABRE for use in the military'’s green energetics program, said Ron Satterfield, Idaho Research Foundation director at Moscow.

In essence, green energetics mean weapons capable of both disarming themselves and rendering their explosive compounds environmentally benign. A bomb or a landmine, for example, might be given a predetermined shelf life of a few months or years through SABRE technology.