Purdue University researchers are presumably quite happy with this one. They've built a hand held substance analyzer that mimics the Tricorder that the Enterprise crew (your pick of series) used on Star Trek.

In a nut shell, a combination of mass spectrography and DESI (desorption electrospray ionization) makes for a portable mass spectrometer. A spectrometer is a more often than not a large (think small to large refrigerator) piece of lab equipment that is used to analyze any variety of material to determine its exact chemical constituency. With the conventional method of mass spectrography, samples are carefully prepared (under laboratory conditions), placed in a container, then placed in a vacuum, and heated or burned. The different spectrum's of light that result can indicate the exact chemical composition of matter. It's a meticulous and delicate process and is destructive to the sample matter in question.

The new DESI system will preform a spectral analysis of material with out ever harming it. And because it is ultra portable at roughly 10 kilograms (22 pounds), it can be used in the Field. Compare that to 200 pounds plus for a conventional laboratory grade mass spectrometer. Measuring in at 13.5 inches long by 8.5 inches wide by 7.5 inches tall, it's maybe the size of a Shuttle PC, or a show box. Plus, it can run off batteries. No word on the battery life though.

The lead researcher of the Purdue team, Professor R. Graham Cooks, the Henry Bohn Hass Distinguished Professor of Analytical Chemistry in Purdue's College of Science, fills us in as to what this device really means.

"Conventional mass spectrometers analyze samples that are specially prepared and placed in a vacuum chamber," Cooks said. "The key DESI innovation is performing the ionization step in the air or directly on surfaces outside of the mass spectrometer's vacuum chamber."

"We like to compare it to the tricorder because it is truly a handheld instrument that yields information about the precise chemical composition of samples in a matter of minutes without harming the samples," Cooks said.

The researchers at Purdue use the device to indicate the presence of a particular compound. If the handheld device registered that indication, then that would be enough to warrant a more detailed analysis of the material in question to determine, with greater accuracy, the exact chemical composition of the substance first indicated y the handheld scanner.

The research team has so far used the device to analyze clothing, a variety of foods, tablets and medication, and even to identify cocaine residue on $50 bills in less than 1 second.

Two startup companies have been established on the basis of DESI and the portable mass spectrometer: Prosolia Inc. in Indianapolis, has commercialized the DESI source, and Griffin Analytical Technologies LLC, in West Lafayette, Ind., has commercialized miniature ion trap mass spectrometers.

The application and near endless for this emerging technology. Airport security, toxic environment assessment, arson investigation, and so forth. Practically anywhere a laboratory might be needed. In fact, NASA should be excited as this little box could be used to analyze the atmosphere of Mars. Better to send a 20 pound, couple thousand dollar (though no price has been determined yet) box to the red planet than a 200 pound, 2 million dollar piece of of equipment to analyze Martian air. It could even one day sniff out diseases such as cancer in the most non-invasive manner. 

Now if they can make one just like the Tricorders from Star Trek, I would probablly buy two of them, make that three.