Trace detection of explosives by ion mobility spectrometry

This chapter will review the principles of ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) followed by a historical review of trace detection of explosives, defining the trace explosive detection problem, sampling, product development process, testing and certification, concluding with the current state and future directions. The authors bring over 50 years of experience in commercial instrumentation development, testing and certification of trace IMS explosive detection platforms. The solution provided by IMS has been very successfully adopted by the marketplace and deployed in the field over the last 40 plus years for use in security applications by civil and military organizations for the trace detection of chemical warfare agents, toxic industrial chemicals, narcotics and explosives. The use of IMS for trace explosive detection was dramatically adopted by the market post 9/11. IMS has provided a robust field deployable solution with excellent size, weight and power specifications coupled with detection levels on the low nanogram (or part per billion) with acceptable false alarm rates at a cost-effective price which can easily be used by non-technical users to provide actionable information when screening many items in a high throughput scenario's.