American chemists from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed an electronic explosives detector that could significantly speed up pre-flight inspections at airports in the future. The device is capable of quickly detecting low-concentration explosives from a distance. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Talanta.
According to the scientists, the equipment they created works at a distance of up to 2.5 meters and has an accuracy that can detect TNT or RDX at levels of less than 10 parts per quadrillion in a few seconds. That’s comparable to finding a pine needle among all the pine trees in conifer-rich Washington state.
The team’s development is based on identifying materials with low vapor pressure and slow evaporation using a hand-held sampler that sucks in about 300 liters of air per minute.
The key to sensitive detection is a device about half a metre long called an atmospheric tube, in which molecules are ionised before being sent to the mass spectrometer.
The length of this tube allows target molecules to be ionized for longer periods of time (milliseconds rather than seconds), which increases detection sensitivity.
The scientists also plan to use their development to detect traces of various drugs.
Previous researchers proventhat dogs’ sense of smell is superior to all current electronic detectors.
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Source: Gazeta
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