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>> So I guess we'll start with the very first lecture.
And for many of you this is really just a review
of information that you already have.
But not knowing who is gonna be taking the class,
we've prepared some slides.
And we're gonna talk about some existing technology.
And many of you already said you're very familiar
with existing technology.
Some of you are -- are fairly new to this.
We're gonna talk about detection of illicit substances.
And by -- by this I mean drugs
and explosives is what we're referring to here.
And we're gonna talk about how the current technology detects
particles or residues, and we'll call this trace.
And that's why the TE -- TEDs --
trace explosive detectors -- are referred to.
Trace is of minute quantities, not visible with the naked eye.
So we're gonna try to detect those.
We're also gonna detect the vapors.
And Brian indicated he's interested in vapor detection.
And -- and many -- many people are now, because if you --
if you think about it, you know,
this is exactly what the K-9s do -- they're detecting the vapors,
the volatiles, the odor signatures.
We're gonna be talking about these terms interchangeable.
And if you think about it, K-9s detect odors in a room --
you'll -- you'll -- you'll have a demonstration of a --
a drug dog in a -- in a little while, at 11:00 this morning.
And you'll see right next door here how the handler can place
the illicit substance one place in the room, and the dog can go
and trace, and go and --
and follow the odor to where the location of the device is.
And there's a professor who studies K-9 olfaction,
who wrote this interesting statement
about dogs can detect the present, the future,
and the past -- not just -- not just the -- the --
the current state of, you know, the presence of --
of volatiles, but if you think about it,
if you've got wind blowing down -- downwind here, and --
and the -- the K-9 is here, the explosives is down --
downwind, that's the future.
So the -- the explosive is gonna be in the future as the --
as the explosive -- as --
as the K-9 is approaching the explosive.
It's also the past.
Somebody had deposited some explosive in the recent past,
and as you are walking the dog by, they are detecting the past.
So that's kind of an interesting way of looking at it.
We are gonna talk about biological detectors,
including this -- the -- the -- the demonstration.
We're not gonna get into a lot of the theory and the --
and the biology of K-9 olfaction,
but we will talk a little bit about the theory
and the chemistry and the instrumental analysis
of instrumental detectors.
We're not gonna get bogged down, but I --
I'd like to give you a little bit of -- of background there.
So I don't have to tell this group how important it is
to detect these illicit substances, and I'm talking
about explosives and drugs.
We have many examples of how important it is,
how big of a threat it is.
I was listening to a talk recently at a conference
in which 100% of all vehicles in London
at the upcoming Olympics will be searched --
100%, one way or another.
Now there is no perfect tool, as you know.
And you have to look at it as a --
a series of tools in your toolbox
to give you the best chance to detect.
In these cases they were not detected,
and we have other examples.
Christmas Day bomber, not detected --
got even actually to the point of trying
to detonate the device on the plane.
Not detected, even with all the great tools
that we have already.
So think about it as having a series of tools in your toolbox,
and then taking them out and using them.
And it's up to you to identify what's the best situation
to take out that tool.
So I'm not gonna talk about the problem.
We know we have a problem, there are threats,
and we're trying to detect them.
And so we have a list of types of explosives --
there's a variety of explosives that we can't focus on one.
We don't know what the threat will be.
Let's -- let's go from low explosives to high explosives.
We have commercial explosives --
these are difficult to get a hold of.
And -- and even more difficult are the military explosives.
And so we have decided in our research to focus on explosives
that are relatively easy to get a hold of -- low explosives.
And low explosives deflagrate, so they have a speed of reaction
that is less than 1,000 meters per second.
And you can buy these, you know, very -- fairly easily --
black powder, black powder substitute, smokeless powders.
These can be used to form a bomb.
And so we have decided to focus on these.
These other high explosives, they detonate
with a much faster speed or reaction.
And normally the low explosives require an oxidizer.
High explosives contain the oxygen
within the compound itself.
So the fuel and the oxygen are contained
within the same compound.
TNT for example has a source of oxygen and a source of carbon
and fuel, so does not require oxygen.
It's a -- it's self-contained.
So we have these commercial explosives, and --
and people who do mining, quarry work can get access to some
of these -- not easily 'cause they are controlled,
and especially the detonators are very controlled.
And then we have -- military explosives are also
very controlled.
But the black powders --
the smokeless powders are explosives,
they're easy to get to.
I mean we -- we purchased some for this research, and so we --
we figured let's -- let's focus on those.
But a lot of the stuff that we're gonna talk
about is applicable to both.
And we have done a lot of research in conjunction
with colleagues at other locations
where high explosives can be handled,
like the Transportation Security Laboratory, and other locations
where we can go, and send our students, and do analyses.
So we -- so a lot of the stuff that we'll talk about pertains
to high explosives and military explosives,
commercial explosives -- and we'll talk about that.
But a -- all the exercises we're gonna do this week are the
low explosives.
We're gonna talk about detecting smokeless powders.
Okay? Now detection.
Bulk systems, bulk analysis, so we're gonna detect the main mass
of explosives that are hidden inside containers.
So we have different technologies already available
for this -- x-ray technology,
neutron activation, millimeter wave.
So these are to detect the bulk amount.
>> And then we have trace.
So we'll make a differentiation between bulk and trace.
And then within trace there are two subgroups.
One is the laboratory detectors, and so if you go
to a forensic laboratory, you will see gas chromatography,
mass spectrometry, you'll see capillary electrophoresis,
and you'll see, you know, mass spectrometry systems.
So these are unambiguous detection
in a very controlled setting,
where these could take a lot of time.
The -- the GCMS analysis for example is on the order
of 45 minutes just for the analysis.
The preparation of the sample takes longer, you know,
running a blank before you do the analysis,
which is also very important.
And you're gonna have to do this when we --
when we -- we do the exercises.
You want to make sure that the entire system is not giving you
a false positive.
So we do a blank, then we do the sampling,
then we do the analysis.
So this takes time.
You don't have this kind of time in the field,
so we have field detectors.
Somebody mentioned FIDO -- there's a picture of FIDO here
on the right-hand side.
Iomobility spectrometry is a very nice tool
for detecting illicit substances.
They're very, very fast, and can be taken --
very portable, can be taken to the field.
But by far the number one method for detecting illicit substances
in the field are K-9s right now.
That is the most effective, efficient method, okay?
So many agencies, federal government, state,
local utilize K-9s for drug explosives, and other threats.
So if you want to take a look at the limits of detection,
how low can you detect something?
I have a graph here.
Here, this is the FIDO system, fluorescent polymers.
So there's an -- a reaction that happens that --
a chemical reaction that is triggered with the presence
of say TNT on these polymers.
And it's extremely sensitive.
So if you look at parts per trillion in terms
of the presence of explosives,
we have the FIDO system beating out everybody else.
But this is not particularly -- well it's very selective, okay?
So really -- it works really well with TNT,
and they are developing other threat detection for the FIDO.
And Tom, maybe you can -- you can tell us later, you know,
what your experience with the Fido has been.
IMS --
>> I'm sorry --
>> Yeah.
>> -- to interrupt.
>> Go ahead.
>> I'll tell you now.
>> Go ahead, please.
>> And again, maybe the technologies have --
have increased over the last -- it's probably been three years
since we actually attempted or -- or played with it.
We -- we actually worked with them for a week.
The problem that we had with the FIDO is you have to be right
on top of the explosive to -- to really detect anything.
So if I was a -- a foot away from it,
it wasn't detecting anything.
So I had to stick my hand in a box,
and that just wasn't feasible for our jobs --
>> Yeah.
>> -- or for first responders.
Now I know that they're all using it in theater,
so maybe their technologies have changed,
or maybe they've gotten better.
I'm not sure.
>> Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Thank you.
>> Is that...
that [inaudible]?
>> Yeah. You know, I don't have any experience
with -- with the FIDO myself.
I do know that they are constantly improving these --
these technologies.
So I'm not sure, you know, how -- how much better it is.
But, you know, like I said, there's no perfect tool.
And it just happens to be -- in terms of sensitivity we have
to note that it is very, very sensitive.
Now, if you're gonna use it as a vapor detector,
you have to make sure that you're targeting something
that has an available vapor.
So not only is the technique itself sensitive, but you have
to get the sample to the -- to the instrument.
And so that's important, so keep that in mind.
IMS, in terms of sensitivity is the next best thing.
So in terms of limit of detection as an instrument,
it's the next best thing.
And again, the -- the -- the --
the key is to get the sample into the instrument.
And when you have particles, and you swab the right area,
and you get those particles
out to the instrument, it works great.
It's a wonderful tool.
Mass spectrometry is -- is -- that's a -- a laboratory system.
Works -- works really well.
And then K-9s, the sensitivity is dependent
on the way you train the K-9s.
Now we can train K-9s to go extremely low,
and that's just a function of --
in terms of the sensitivity is how do you train them, okay?
We can get into more of that later.
The effects of the properties of explosives on detection,
explosives have these properties,
we'll call them electronegativity.
That's the ability of the affinity
for electrons -- for a substance.
Fluorine for example has the highest affinity for electrons
on the periodic table -- very negative element.
Explosives in general have very high electronegativity.
Absorptivity, thermal stability -- so --
so explosives are not very stable thermally.
They decompose because we want 'em to.
If -- as -- as a designer of an explosive,
you want the explosive to -- you want the compound to break up
and detonate really quickly.
And on the other side is you want a compound
to be fairly stable so it doesn't go off unexpectedly.
Frangibility is the way that the -- the material breaks up.
So cookie dough is not very frangible --
it doesn't break up.
But a cookie does -- a cooked cookie will break
up into little pieces.
And that's -- that's one of the properties of explosives,
so break up and fragment.
And then this other thing -- vapor pressure.
This is important for us,
because we can use this as a detection tool.
So we can use the vapor pressure characteristics of an explosive.
Many explosives, like RDX,
do not have a very high vapor pressure.
That means they're not available to be smelled,
so they're not available to be detected.
So we have to look for another property,
or another associated odor to RDX.
And that's exactly what we're doing in many cases.
So here, our plastic explosives.
We have RDX, PETN, and then mixtures.
What we're gonna do is we're gonna look
at the plasticizers -- so these compounds right here.
We're gonna use it at the binders,
we're gonna use it at other compounds.
And military explosives should have a taggant
that is very volatile -- DMNB.
We can target this taggant.
Now, if you're a bad guy --
especially like a bad guy with a lot of resources, you're --
you can get a hold of plastic explosives
that do not have the taggant.
So we -- we -- we can't hang our hat looking
for the taggant in every case.
So we'll look for the taggant, but we'll also look
for these other compounds.
Now most ETDs are gonna look for just RDX.
So, so far today if you expose some unknown compound
to your ETD, it'll look for RDX.
If it's there, it'll alert RDX.
But currently today we're not looking for these other things
that could be present as odor signatures of RDX.
And that's the kind of thing that we've been doing in --
in our laboratory, okay?
We've been targeting -- we've been going into the instrument
to the ETD, and calibrating it, and putting in compounds so that
when they're present, when they're detected,
it comes up with an alert.
Okay? So that's -- that's what's been different.
[ Silence ]
>> Question for you?
>> Yeah.
>> Are there other products on the market that will --
will have these plasticizers
that won't be an explosive though,
that you may get a false reading?
>> Yes, there are.
>> Is there a filter?
Or how do you --
>> Well that's the thing.
So -- so -- so there isn't gonna be a tradeoff.
And looking for compounds --
looking for compounds that you know are indicative
of an explosive, but you know that, you know,
they could be present in other things.
So what you might do is look for combinations of things.
So you might look for combinations of compounds that,
you know, reduce that false positive rate.
Yeah, the false positive rate is -- is important.
The false negative rate is more important.
You don't want to let any explosives go through, alright?
It's just a matter of how much false positive can you tolerate.
>> So is your -- is your vision for this instrument to be a tool
for prioritizing selective screening, as opposed to more
of a -- a firm analysis of what you have?
>> All of these field detection tools are gonna be presumptive
screening tools.
Ultimately, to confirm the presence of an explosive,
that needs to go to a crime lab.
So under controlled conditions, you know, so you --
you want to screen the guy before he gets on the airplane,
you want to screen the guys in the car before he drives
through the checkpoint.
And then if you got a positive,
then you continue the investigation, okay?
Do a further search, you can -- you can even, you know,
collect whatever items you want, and then send those to the lab.
>> [Inaudible].
I've just seen that, you know,
some decision makers make some decision.
If you have an Ahura, and it says presumptively
that this is window washing fluid, then they're satisfied
to stop with any further action.
And I'm -- I'm just curious to see what your goal is, if you --
if you're gonna get to the level
where people may make some decisions based
on what they see, or you're just gonna say there may
or may not be energetic material present,
and this requires a more complete investigation.
>> Right.
>> Or seperation.
>> That -- that is really a policy,
kind of a decision that's gonna be, you know, what is the --
what is the situation?
What is the -- what is the --
what are the requirements for that particular situation,
if it's a checkpoint screening.
And then it's gonna be by --
the agency's gonna make that kind of determination.
You know, how do you --
how do you progress when you have an alert
with an instrument.
So that's gonna be, you know, agency by agency.
What we're trying to do is provide an additional tool
into your tool chest for detecting explosives.
Will you get some false positives?
Our indication is that that is gonna be very low.
So -- but we need to get this out in the field and --
and continue to do this research.
Okay. Anything else?
So here's -- here's what we want to do,
is we want to mimic what the K-9s do.
The K-9s cannot detect RDX.
It's not available for detection.
It's just simply not high enough vapor pressure.
Okay? So the K-9s are trained on RDX, but it's --
it's the compounds that come off that are associated
with the presence of RDX, C4 for example, that --
that are being detected by the K-9s.
And we've found that what they alert
to is 2-ethyl-1-hexanol for C4.
So the dog thinks it's C4, but it's really 2-ethyl-1-hexanol.
That's what we're trying to do with these instruments now,
is we're trying to capture as much of the volatiles
that are there as possible, and then introduce them
into the instrument so they can be detected.
And that's exactly what the dogs do.
And nobody -- I mean we know that the --
the false positives for K-9s are improving
as the training improves.
Okay? So if you have a -- if you have a dog alerting falsely,
then you, you know, you do -- you -- you -- you --
you make adjustments to the training for that K-9.
In the airport, what we're trying to do is we'll --
we'll alert mainly to the particles.
So the K-9s are alerting to the vapors,
in the airports we're alerting to the particles,
and in the laboratory we're gonna do both.
We have the flexibility, we have the time,
we have the controlled setting to be able
to detect everything, okay?
And that's -- that's a confirmatory test.
In the field, we're doing really presumptive identifications,
and then it's up to your policy to stop, you know,
evaluate further, and that's what you want to do.
And that's exactly what the dogs do.
So I -- I'm not gonna get into the chemistry of drugs,
and you're probably all familiar with the different schedules
of controlled substances, and how they are placed
into those schedules, and that's based on the potential
for the abuse and the accepted medical use.
If a compound does not have any medical use,
and a high potential for abuse, they're placed
in the highest category, which is schedule 1.
And examples of that are ***, LSD, MDMA, and so forth.
If there is a compound that has some medical use
but still high potential for abuse, like ***,
they're in the schedule 2, and so forth.
So we use a similar principle here.
We want to be able to detect the presence of hidden ***
for example in a large container.
And K-9s are the best detectors right now.
We can also train K-9s to detect other things.
MDMA does not have a very high vapor pressure,
but we're gonna train the K-9s to detect the compounds
that are associated with the presence of MDMA, ecstasy,
and piperonal has been identified
as a key volatile organic compound.
It has a very high vapor pressure.
It's available to be detected.
So if the dogs can do it, we can --
we can design an experiment --
an instrumental system to do the same thing.
So here are some volatiles from *** and marijuana.
Have -- whenever you see that you have no number here --
whenever you see there's no -- there's no number here,
that means the vapor pressure is very low.
That means the compound does not evaporate very easily.
So we're gonna target compounds
that have a fairly high vapor pressure.
So methyl benzoate, here's methyl benzoate.
It is a product of the composition of ***,
along with benzoic acid.
So benzoic acid -- benzoic acid
and methanol decompose out of ***.
When it's in -- when in acidic form, and --
and you have any presence of water, they'll break apart,
and then they'll recombine to make methyl benzoate.
Methyl benzoate is present pretty much in all ***
as it decomposes over time.
And that's what the dogs alert to, we know that now.
That's been published and confirmed.
And you can train a dog on methyl benzoate, and have --
have the dog alert to -- to ***.
And we do the same thing with marijuana.
So we're looking for these volatiles that are present
in the plant, that may be present in other plants, yes,
but the combination of these compounds are gonna alert
to the possibility of having marijuana there.
And -- and then you can stop and do a -- a search.
Now vapor pressure, this is the example I love to give.
I have a 10-year old son.
And if -- if I'm watching TV with my wife --
watching a movie, and I make popcorn in the kitchen,
he could be in his room, you know, several feet away,
he can smell the popcorn.
He comes out of the room, where's the popcorn?
He can smell it.
Popcorn itself has very low vapor pressure.
The popcorn kernel does not evaporate.
However, there are compounds that come off of the popcorn
that are very characteristic of the smell
of popcorn, and we can smell 'em.
What are they?
Here's some of 'em.
So that's what we do as -- as a biological detector.
>> K-9s have a better ability to do this in the --
in that they can flush out their noses very quickly,
and they can be trained, and the sensitivity
of the K-9 olfaction is -- is better than the human olfaction.
So if you are looking for currency --
if you're looking for *** on currency,
many years ago we would, you know, look for ***
on currency, then --
then impound the currency because well, this is illicit.
You know, it's been -- it's been retrieved with illicit means.
And now what we find is that much of the currency
in circulation in the US and -- and in Europe is contaminated
with *** for example.
Okay? So the drug gets absorbed onto the bills,
and then when the bills go to the bank and they --
they're put into the machines,
well there's all this cross-contamination
that happens.
So a lot of the currency may have small particles of ***.
What's interesting is that we still can impound currency
that we believe has been, you know, ill-gotten, and associated
with drug trafficking.
And they do that by collecting the odors.
Here's -- here's the dog --
here's the dog thinking it's got ***,
but really they're alerting to methyl benzoate.
Out of crack *** or -- or -- or powder ***, we have a --
the odor emanates in the form of methyl benzoate.
The dog is smelling the methyl benzoate.
They think it's ***, but it's really methyl benzoate.
Now you may have 10 nanograms of *** on the surface,
the dog's not gonna smell that, not enough, okay?
But if you have a lot of *** or a lot
of recently contaminated bills with ***, then that --
that quantity of -- of odor will elicit an alert
from -- from the dogs.
So this is kind of a -- a --
something we've learned over time.
And my colleague at FIU, Ken Furton, has done a lot
of research in this area.
And there's actual -- actual case law now with the use
of K-9s for being able to impound money
that has been thought to be, you know,
illicit -- from illicit means.
So we've also done a lot of work, and this is a project
that was done in collaboration between our group at FIU
and actually Patty Diaz and Michael Mesias who's now
at the FBI Laboratory --
looked at the permeation rate of some devices.
So we -- we can put -- we can put some illicit substances
into a plastic bag and allow them to permeate
out of the plastic bag.
As we change the permeation rate,
we can see that the K-9 response improves one --
as we increase the permeation rate.
So the more that is available,
the more likely it is for the K-9 to alert.
So this is a -- what we call a dose response.
The lower the dose, the lower the response.
So as we -- as we go from 10 nanograms per second dose
to the dog, we -- we're only getting about 25% response.
As we increase the dose, then we have a much better response.
So this is a typical curve for a dose response
between what you offer the dog, and the response you get back.
So Ken Furton's group has been working for years --
as long as I've known him, maybe 15 years
on improving K-9 olfaction and K-9 alerts for both drugs,
fire debris, explosives, etcetera.
[ Silence ]
>> We do the same thing with instruments.
We have the same kind of dose down here on the bottom,
the amount in terms of nanograms that we expose
to the instrument, and the intensity.
So this is a typical calibration curve of an instrument.
The -- as you -- so you might have this as a background.
This is a false positive right here.
You're not exposing the instrument to any explosive,
and you're still getting some signal.
But we know to let the instrument know this is still
a negative.
So above some threshold we'll say it's a positive, okay?
And then the instrument will register a --
an alert, you'll get the red screen,
and you'll say there's something here.
In the case of MDMA,
the instrument is not normally detecting pyperinol.
But we have put that in as one of the compounds to the --
for the instrument to detect.
So now we can collect the odor signatures of MDMA.
So we'll sample the air above a can that has some MDMA --
one or two tablets -- for a very short period of time,
collect the piperonal odor, place that sample
into the instrument, and get an alert.
So we publish a lot of this work,
it's pretty exciting stuff.
So Adam was talking about presumptive
and confirmatory test.
Field testing is usually presumptive --
we're doing screening.
Field detection can lead
to further investigation and probable cause.
In parentheses here, I am not an attorney,
this is not a legal opinion.
However, you may stop, based on your --
the policies in your agency, and conduct further investigation,
depending on what's, you know, what's going on.
Confirmatory tests are usually conducted
in an accredited laboratory under very controlled conditions
by qualified scientists using standardized
and validated methods.
And they're the ones that usually go and testify along
with you that made the first screening test
as to the identity of the compound of interest.
So how do I conclude this presentation?
Well, there's a number of existing technologies out there
for detecting drugs and explosives.
Trace detectors target contamination from contact.
So we're gonna look for particles.
If you have a bomb maker and they're not, you know,
extremely careful, they're going to get particles on the outside
of the packaging, and that's where we're gonna swab.
And you'll see, we have some particles that you won't --
you can't see them, they're not visible,
but we can detect 'em -- small amounts, nanograms,
10 to the minus 9 gram,
a billionth of a gram can easily be detected
with these trace detectors.
So we're gonna target particles for the presence of the RDX,
and we're gonna target vapors --
the presence of the odor signatures that are associated
with the presence of RDX, which is not gonna be RDX.
We can use biological detectors,
and we can use instrumental detectors.
And we feel that this new innovation -- what --
what we call the planar SPME, and you'll hear
about it a little bit later -- can be used for vapor detection
when currently K-9s are the state of the art.
And Brian has said --
well, we're looking to see what these instrumental detectors can
offer in comparison to the K-9s.
So what the -- that's because instrumental detectors offer
some advantages.
They can operate 24-7, they're a lot less expensive once you get
'em up and running, and they don't require a handler.
So the -- there are some advantages
of instrumental detectors over K-9s, even though we realize now
as a community that K-9s are currently the state of the art.
And remember, always a confirmation is done
in the laboratory.
Confirmation, you've got to collect that evidence,
and submit it to an accredited laboratory for confirmation.
In your USB are all these lectures.
So you can go back and look at all these slides again.
And I'd like to point to some of the cited references here by --
some by our group and some by others.
So if any of you are interested to go back and take a look
at some of this original, you know,
peer-reviewed literature, we have some there.
Any questions?
No? Okay.