Author(s)

B. Rutecka, J. Wojtas, J. Mikolajczyk, Z. Bielecki & T. Stacewicz

Abstract

Detection of trace amounts of substance is a challenging task in many technologies. Nowadays, a lot of detection systems operate at the detection limit. It is observed especially in such areas as medicine or security; for example, in explosive detection. In medicine, the technology of trace substance detection is associated with breath analysis. Some specific diseases can change the concentration of certain molecules (biomarkers) in the exhaled air. Because of the extremely low concentration of explosives’ vapour and volatile compounds in exhausted breath, very sensitive detection instruments and an efficient system for their collection are needed. For this purpose, special devices – so-called concentrators – can be applied. Available solutions of the concentrators are dedicated to a specific detection system. The paper presents some projects of a concentration system, designed to cooperate with an optoelectronic sensor using cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (CEAS). Preliminary investigation showed that this setup provides the opportunity to detect 1 ng of such explosives as TNT, PETN, RDX and HMX. The results have also shown that such instruments could be used to detect some disease biomarkers in human breath. Keywords: optoelectronic sensor, explosives detection, breath analysis, concentrator system.

Keywords

optoelectronic sensor, explosives detection, breath analysis,concentrator system