Science Journal
Million-dollar airport scanners get a run for their money from a small, Czech-made device that can sniff out even the smallest traces of explosive and radioactive materials.
Welcome to Science Journal for August, 2010.
Breakthrough science is so often done in the most inconspicuous of places. In this case, it’s a pink, square-shaped building in the Prague suburban district of Chodov, where the company RS Dynamics is based. The company’s director Jiří Bláha told me about what they do in their modest premises.
The reason I’m here today is to look at a small device that is making a big change in the way security is handled in airports, by the police and in the theatre of war. The Explonix portable trace explosive sniffer and analyser is only the size of a brick, but it combines the work of several machines to detect hazardous liquids, sensitive radioactive agents, and explosive traces so slight, they may have been merely handled by a person hours or days before. In 2008, Explonix won the company the EUREKA research and development organisation’s prestigious Lynx award. Michal Zástěra works on research and development at RS Dynamics, and he’s going to show me how it works.
“The is a one-minute start-up; then the machine. I’m going to show you the detection of TNT traces. First I will contaminate my finger with TNT, then I will put it on a paper strip and show you how it is detected from that. Any surface can be wiped with this strip and tested for the presence of explosive traces."
What you’ve got here is only a few small grains of TNT...
“Yes, there are only a few small pieces and I will only touch them...”
So just out of curiosity, what would such a small amount of TNT do if you set fire to it?
“Nothing, nothing. It would be practically the same as if you burnt a small piece of paper. We detect only traces, that means that our detection counts on a person who has manipulated with explosives having touched a surface they have left traces of the explosives there, and after testing we can detect these surface traces. If we detect traces we expect there has been manipulation with explosives.”
“The instrument is ready. So now I can contaminate my finger, press my finger to the paper, start detection... You will see a zero response for ambient air... and after putting the sampling strip close to the instrument you see the immediate response. There is a value that relates to the concentration or amount of explosives detected and an audible alarm that informs the person operating the instrument.”
Is there any similar machine used anywhere in the world? What makes this machine unique?
“Two points. First, the unique infrared sampling mode, which enables the detection of non-volatile explosives in vapour mode, and secondly the combination of the detection and identification of radioactive material, because Explonix became the first, worldwide instrument capable of effective detection of dirty bombs.”
By “non-volatile explosives” you mean explosives that won’t emit anything until they are heated up.
“Exactly. The typical example being practically all plastic explosives, which are widely used in industry and also, unfortunately, by terrorists.”
“The radiological part of the instrument is continuously powered on and if there is a presence of some radioactivity the instrument can detect it immediately. This feature is for the detection of a possible dirty bomb, which is a mixture of explosive and radioactive material. When I put this radioactive testing emitter close to the detector (close, because it is a very weak emitter for the safety of the tester), the instrument will sound an immediate alarm for radioactive detection, which you can see now.”
And this is what kind of substance?
“This is Americium-241. We also have Caesium-137, a standard sample for testing or calibrating.”
Will it only notify you of a hazardous material if it’s very close?
“This sampling radiation is practically nothing. If we have dangerous radiation it will detect it from four metres to tens of metres.”
So if there is a dirty bomb in a rubbish bin somewhere...
“Yes, then it can be detected from tens of metres away.”
So the police could for example have this machine in their car, simply drive down the street and be aware of the presence of a dirty bomb.
“Exactly, yes. Because it is very easy to detect radiation from long distances, because radiation penetrates practically everything.”
And how would the range be for something like TNT or another explosive material; how close would it have to be, if you had for example a suitcase full of TNT?
“As close as possible. Because you still have to calculate that the concentration of the vapour phase decays with the third order of the distance. So the closer you can get, the better it is for detection.”
“We also offer a radio control module so the instrument can be positioned on a bomb squad robot and can to into a dangerous area without the operator and can be controlled remotely.”
And is it actually being used like that anywhere?
“Sure. In the United States, in many other areas where they require remote bomb squad operation.”
So it has already been sold around the world?
What more could you really need at an airport security gate? There, you want to know if someone has a gun, if they have some kind of explosive, perhaps in their shoe, if they’re carrying some kind of radioactive material, and this machine can do all of those things. So, doesn’t it make a lot of other kinds of airport technology obsolete?
“Yes and no. You know, in our days, there is a lot of noise around the whole globe about so called body scanners, which are based on terahertz detection technology. On the other hand, this technology is very expensive – a good scanner costs more than one million dollars – and requires a lot of room at the check in gates, typically six to eight square metres for the detection chamber and the operator’s room. And those scanners also expose the body to very strong terahertz of radiation which scientists in France and Germany nowadays qualify as being possibly very dangerous to the genetic code of human beings. So we strongly believe that Explonix is a very good alternative to body scanners, because if we are satisfied with the principle of trace detection, it provides much faster results, it is very reliable, and costs a fragment of the price of a body scanner and has absolutely zero health effects.”
All while fitting into something the size of a shoebox.
“Sure.”
How much time and money went into the creation of this instrument?
“I’m not sure if we can speak about a total amount, because it’s quite difficult to calculate everything, however we have been developing this technology for about the last seven years.”
So what are your plans for the future? This is the second version of the machine, so where can it go from here and be improved even further?
“We have a number of ideas, and there are two projects we are working on. I don’t want to speak in detail about this because it is, of course, a company secret. But we are preparing a much simpler, smaller, more compact version of this instrument that will be suitable for any policeman walking the beat, and we are also preparing a much more advanced detector with a wider spectrum of detection capabilities. We can focus on other dangerous materials, or on narcotics, chemical warfare agents. But that is the future, and nothing definite at the moment.”
Many more great innovations to look forward to from the Prague-based RS Dynamics, but for now, that’s all we have time for on this month’s Science Journal. Thanks for joining us.
