GC/MS Question

[woof woof woof]

I recently read that the authorithies in Aruba , which is a sister island of Curacao has bought of of these GC/MS apparatuses.

I have read that it will be used to detect illicit substances.

What I want to know is is there like a sniffer snout that (can be) attached to it to smell out luggage or does it require samples of the suspected material to be processed?

How will it most likely be used to detect "stuff" is my question?

DArn All that planning for nothin hi hi

[Murple]

A GC/MS is a rather complex bit of eqipment used to analyze samples of chemicals. It is not a "sniffer" or anything even close. They are rather common devices really, though I suppose many smaller or poorer countries/provinces/towns may not have them in the police headquarters. Most universities have them in their chemistry centers, and many larger police agencies have them in their crime labs.

All this means is that if the police in Aruba find a suspicious pill or powder on somebody now, they can analyze it themselves without having to mail it to an off-site lab. This isn't some kind of portable drug detector.

[This message has been edited by Murple (edited 04 August 2002).]

[Torsten]

I've written about this before...... when Daniel came into OZ last they waved him to the red channel. Over the next hour they ransacked his suitcase, pockets and him. They took swabs off his skin, his clothes, his case, and even his party flyers (he'd been to amsterdam ). Then ran the samples to the lab and came back with a negative. basically they stick the swabs is solution and run them through a GC/MS. They must have several, cos they do hundreds of swabs every hour.

Sniffers is the next technology they are working on. Plume samplers they are called. Basically, we continually shed skin and this is continually propelled upwards by bodyheat. This is called the plume. The skin samples contain a lot of things, including any drugs we may have consumed or touched. The air gets drawn into a MS and analysed automatically. Results should only take a second or so. The whole contraption will look like metal scanner arches, so you wouldn't even know if you walked into one or not.