New techniques for the detection of drugs and explosives are being developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science by Dr. Jehuda Yinon, of the Institute’s Isotope Research Department, in a research project financed by a grant of IL 650,000 from the Israel police, the largest sum ever allocated by the police for research.
Dr. Yinon’s method, based on a technique called Chemical Ionization-Mass Spectrometry, which he studied during his recent two-year sojourn at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Cal., involves the introduction of large quantities of gas (methane or isobutane) into the ionization chamber of the mass spectrometer, thus strengthening the “signals” received when the instrument detects the presence of drugs or explosives in a compound under analysis. Dr. Yinon. who has been on the staff of the Institute since 1965, was born in Germany 38 years ago.
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