JERUSALEM, Jan 6: Israeli researchers have developed a pen-like device which can detect improvised explosives commonly used by militant groups to carry out deadly attacks.

The device, which resembles a felt-tip pen with buttons on it, releases three chemical solutions that change colour when they come into contact with a certain type of explosive material often used in makeshift bombs, which is known as triacetone triperoxide (TATP).

Nicknamed the PET, or peroxide explosive tester, was devised by a team headed up by Professor Ehud Keinan, dean of the faculty of chemistry at Israel's prestigious Technion University in the northern port city of Haifa.

TATP charges have been used in numerous anti-Israeli attacks over the years, including the suicide attack in the Dolphinarium disco in Tel Aviv in 2001 which killed 21 people, several attacks on Jerusalem's main high street and in numerous bus bombings.

"TATP and other explosives of the peroxide family are used extensively by many terrorist organisations around the world for two reasons: they are easy to prepare and very difficult to detect," Keinan said in a statement released by the Technion.

Among those participating in the research were experts from the Nuclear Research Centre in the southern Negev desert and from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. -AFP