Detecting Toxins: Saving Lives

Reported February 2006

BOSTON (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- The most dangerous and deadly things may not be what we see, but what we don't. Now, a new device may be the early alert that helps save lives!

In a fire it's not just what you see, but what you can't see that makes this blaze dangerous. In the air are potentially undetected hazardous chemicals.

Jeffrey Hopwood, Ph.D., an electrical engineer at Plasma Science and Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, invented a portable microplasma device to detect deadly toxins in the air. He says, "So when I hold this to the fluorescent light, you can see mercury in the spectrum and the plasma source is only about the size of a human hair."

This portable microplasma device is extraordinary because of its size. It can be taken anywhere. It uses a spectrometer to measure the unique set of colors or wavelengths emitted by dangerous chemicals. "Any time you excite a sample gas it will emit a unique signature of color or wavelengths," Hopwood says.

Depending on the color, researchers can determine the type and amount of contamination. For example, sulfur dioxide is released from burning coal and causes acid rain. The device would give off a blue-green color, indicating sulfur.

The device is lightweight and cheaper than all the other detection devices. Currently desktop-size machines tests for contaminants but samples cannot be analyzed on scene.

Chris Doughty, president of Verionix, Inc. in Andover, Mass., is one of the first to try out the microplasma. " I'd be excited to have any chance to enhance the public security."

The microplasma device is currently used for industrial purposes; Verionix, its creator, hopes to market it to the public in the near future. It will cost about $100.

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Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
440 Dana Research Building, Northeastern University
Boston, MA 02115-5000
(617) 373-2368
jpratt@ece.neu.edu

For more information on engineering, contact:

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
IEEE-USA
1828 L Street, N.W., Suite 1202
Washington, D.C. 20036-5104
(202) 785-0017
ieeeusa@ieee.org
http://www.ieee.org

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