Background In the 2024 series of Beirut explosions in Lebanon, terrorists hid trace high-explosive materials in electronic products to carry out attacks, exposing the shortcomings of the current detection system. Existing trace detection technologies cannot penetrate the casings of electronic products, while in bulk detection technologies, CT has limitations in imaging plate-like components such as mobile phones, and conventional X-ray security inspectors lack sufficient resolution. Neither of these can meet the detection needs. Computed Lamography (CL) technology is suitable for detecting plate-like components but lacks specialized research on trace explosives.

Purpose This study aims to explore the adaptation path of dual-energy CL technology to trace explosive detection and provide a technical solution for the accurate identification of hidden explosives in electronic products.

Methods A simulation model of a mobile phone containing trace TNT and an R-value measurement model were built using Geant4 to obtain dual-energy X-ray projection data. In MATLAB, the POCS-TVM algorithm was used for image reconstruction, and the ratio of attenuation coefficients (R-value) was calculated to determine the effective atomic number of substances for explosive identification.

Results CL technology overcame the imaging limitations of CT for plate-like components. The R-value-based algorithm showed that the effective atomic number of TNT was 7.1388, which fell within the range of 7.1-7.4 for explosives. Additionally, the correlation coefficient of the fitted curve for low-high energy projection data reached 0.999.

Conclusions This study verifies the feasibility of dual-energy CL for trace explosive detection, provides a new technical path for identifying hidden explosives in electronic products, and is of great significance for enhancing nuclear security and anti-terrorism security inspection capabilities.