Reagent Impregnated Swipe for Thermal Desorption Release and Chemical Detection with Ambient Ionization Technology

This invention is used in the detection of explosives, narcotics, chemical warfare agents or toxins.  

Researchers

Kerin Gregory / Roderick Kunz

Departments: Lincoln Laboratory
Technology Areas: Diagnostics: Assays / Sensing & Imaging: Chemical & Radiation Sensing
Impact Areas: Advanced Materials

  • reagent impregnated swipe for chemical detection
    United States of America | Granted | 9,891,193

Technology

The invention is a material that contains both a swipe optimized for collecting chemical traces and ionization reagents that improves the ionization probability and increase the resultant mass of the target analyte. The improved swipe can include multiple ionization reagents with different volatilities that can be released sequentially during a thermal ramp-up. Also, the swipe can have multiple ionization reagents associated with spatially separated portions of the swipe such that they can be releasable sequentially to detect multiple target analytes.   

Problem Addressed

The evolving threats posed by concealed explosives or the intentional release of toxic chemicals demands new and better ways to detect these threats and protect the public.   

Advantages 

  • The method increases the range of threat chemicals that could be analyzed at a higher precision
  • Different ionization reagents can be used for separate regions of the swipe, thereby opening up the possibility of faster automated analysis  

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