A new hand-held chemical weapons detection device
Contact Stephen Loy LSU News Service OFFICE 504/388-8654 HOME 504/677-8821
Edward Overton OFFICE 504/388-8521 HOME 504/767-0980
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BATON ROUGE -- A researcher at Louisiana State University has developed a prototype of a hand-held device that analyzes air to detect the chemicals, including those found in bombs.
Edward Overton, director of the LSU Institute for Environmental Studies, developed the environmental detection device that can also be used for explosive and chemical war fare agent detection.
"Our primary interest at the institute is to create devices that detect pollution in the environment, but these same devices can be tailored for chemical weapons detection," said Overton.
The device detects and analyzes the smallest chemical particles and can be calibrated to detect particular chemicals or combinations of chemicals that make up some explosives.
About the size of a brief case, the prototype takes samples of the air and returns analyses within seconds.
Overton says the new hand-held device could cost half that of traditional larger units. Current detection devices are the size of filing cabinets and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Because of its size and cost, the LSU-developed device could have wide ranging uses and could be placed in every airport and subway station in the nation, said Overton.
-30-
RSS