Development of a Person portable GPS mounted Internet ready Explosive Sensor

It is proposed to develop an ultra-sensitive, remotely operated, person portable, GPS mounted and internet ready explosive detector of novel design. It will consist of an ion source based on the elactro-spray ionization source for which 2002 Nobel Prize was awarded to Prof. John Fenn. His student,Dr. S. Fuerstenau,whose Ph.D. theses was based on this source is a consultant/collaboraotr of this proposal.This source will be modified to soft ionize explosive molecules present in the form of vapors in the ambient air with a very high efficiency. The ions of explosives will then be introduced into a miniature vacuum system through a device, recently developed by the P.I., called "Supersonic Pulsed Jet Separator, SPJS" in the form of short bursts, thereby reducing the pumping requirements which make a mass spectrometer based instruments bulky, heavy, and power consuming. The ions will be mass analyzed by a miniature time-of-flight mass spectrometer, also recently developed by the P.I., and detected by a charged particle detector. During first phase of the proposed work the following will be accomplished: 1) Design, build, and test the electro-spray ionization source, 2) fabricate the SPJS, 3) test the combination for its ability to convert explosive molecules into ions and measure the efficiency of this conversion, and 4) prepare a conceptual design of a person portable detector that will be fabricated during phase 2 of the proposed work.