BYU scientist creates chemical detector

The chemicals then were filtered to a miniaturized mass spectrometer, which fragmented the ions in the sample and provided a chemical fingerprint to be compared to the chemicals stored in the machine's software.

Within minutes, the Guardion-7 hit on a harmless agent in the Lifesaver that is similar to chemicals in some drugs.

The machine can detect everything from nerve agents to flammable accelerants used by arsonists, most explosives, toxic chemicals, drugs of abuse and organic compounds.

Torion has produced 15 pre-production models of the Guardion-7. The government owns 11 already.

The company is constructing a manufacturing floor in American Fork and has a partnership with Smiths Detection, which manufactures wands to screen airline passengers and machines that X-ray luggage, to sell the Guardion-7 to its market.

The real innovation of the invention is the miniaturization of the gas chromatograph and the toroidal ion trap mass spectrometer, plus the combination of the two.

Gas chromatographs have required an oven to produce heat, but Lee's invention reduced the size of the device to that of a matchbox. The mass spectrometer in the Guardion-7 is smaller than large pill bottle. Combined, Lee's team still managed to dramatically reduce the power needed to run the two.

"This will run on about 80 watts, using 24-volt batteries," Later said.

Previous detectors, or "sniffers," couldn't positively identify a chemical or avoid false positives.

"When you're in a battlefield environment where decision-making is critical, you'd like to know exactly what you're dealing with," Lee said. "We knew there was a need for a smart detector. Other detectors aren't definitive enough so you can go into a courtroom and say, here is the data and this was the chemical."

Tests for detecting nerve agents were done at Dugway Proving Grounds near Tooele. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency approved the machine's performance last month.

They will continue to attempt to shrink the size and weight of the machine, but their advertising campaign already plays up its portability.

"When we say portable," declares a picture with a mountain climber scaling a steep peak with a Guardion-7 hanging from his shoulders, "we mean portable."

Lee earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry at the University of Utah in the 1970s. Earlier this month, he was awarded a lifetime achievement award at a conference of 20,000 scientists in Pittsburgh.

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E-mail: twalch@desnews.com