We all know it, we all love it…. Yes, it’s the mass spectrometer…..
As most of us have no idea what a mass spectrometer is, much less what it does, I have taken it upon myself to give you a free lesson on mass spectrometry. As you can see from the illustration below, mass spectrometry is an analytical technique that ionizes chemical species and sorts the ions based on their mass to charge ratio. In simpler terms, a mass spectrum measures the masses within a sample. Mass spectrometry is used in many different fields and is applied to pure samples as well as complex mixtures (see Wikipedia’s page by clicking here).
Looks normal enough but this puppy is loaded with all sorts of geeky technology which, according to it’s developers, will permit law enforcement to track down drugs, based on their chemical signatures, from a quarter of a mile away! Researchers say the portable device can pinpoint the location of the suspicious chemicals and provide officers access to real time analysis on site because the “drug-sniffing” car acts as a portable lab, using a mass spectrometer to pick up on the different chemicals in the air and identify those that don’t belong.
According to the researchers, to the human senses, these chemical qualities in the air may not be noticeable, but their tests have shown the car can detect them from up to a quarter of a mile away. Referred to as “Membrane Inlet Mass Spectrometry” (or MIMS) the portable air testing system allows for real-time analysis.
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