DIRAC (EC FP7)
Project acronym: DIRAC
Project full title: Rapid screening and identification of illegal Drugs by IR Absorption spectroscopy and gas Chromatography
Funding: The project is financially supported by the European Commission through the FP7 Program.
Area: Smart Sensors
- Topic
- Detection of illicit substances
- Objectives
- Development of a point sensor to be used by customs and police officers in their daily fight against the trafficking of illicit drugs, suitable in particular to detect and identify amphetamines and their precursors.
- Role of CREO
- Project coordination, system integration, development of the IR module.
- Sensing solution / Technology
- Chemical targets in the vapour phase are first preconcentrated and separated by Gas Chromatography on silicon-micromachined devices, then analyzed by InfaRed Absorption Spectroscopy, utilizing a Quantum Cascade Laser as IR source and a hollow fiber as miniaturized optical cell.
TRL: 5
A prototype the size of a hand-luggage tested succesfully with ATS precursors like safrole and APAAN in the nanogram range, and demonsrated at the Customs of the Brussels National Airport
Web site: http://www.fp7-dirac.eu/
Related papers:
- S. Mengali, N. Liberatore, D. Luciani, R. Viola, G. C. Cardinali, I. Elmi, A. Poggi, S. Zampolli, E. Biavardi, E. Dalcanale, F. Bonadio, O. Delemont, P. Esseiva, and F. S. Romolo, Rapid screening and identification of illicit drugs by IR absorption spectroscopy and gas chromatography Proc. SPIE 8631, Quantum Sensing and Nanophotonic Devices X, 86312F (2013), (doi:10.1117/12.2003903s) [Abstract];
- S. Mengali, D. Luciani, R. Viola, N. Liberatore, S. Zampolli, I. Elmi, G. Cardinali, A. Poggi, E. Dalcanale, E. Biavardi, P. Esseiva, O. Delemont, F. Bonadio and F. S. Romolo, Toward street detection of amphetamines – SPIE Newsroom (30 January 2013), (doi: 10.1117/2.1201301.004682) [HTML–Pdf - Pdf];
- N. Liberatore, D. Luciani, S. Mengali, R. Viola, G. C. Cardinali, I. Elmi, A. Poggi, S. Zampolli, E. Biavardi, E. Dalcanale, D. Menozzi A New Sensitive and Fast Detection System for Amphetamine Type Stimulants (ATS), Based on Gas-Chromatography (GC) and Hollow Fiber Infrared Absorption Spectroscopy (HF-IRAS) Proceedings of the First National Conference on Sensors, Rome 15-17 February, 2012 – Series: Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, Vol. 162;