"Portable NIST Kit Can Recover Traces of Chemical Evidence."

"Portable NIST Kit Can Recover Traces of Chemical Evidence." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7

Jan. 2016. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.

This article called “Portable NIST Kit Can Recover Traces of Chemical Evidence” from the National Institute of Standards and Technology is about a NIST chemist called Tom Bruno, who invented a new way for investigators to quickly collect traces of chemical evidence. This kit is small and easily accessible. The “technique” used to allow this new invention to work is called PLOT-cryoadsorption, which is short for Porous Layer Open Tubular Cryogenic Adsorption. It works by identifying compounds that do not easily evaporate. This technique can recover vapors from a substance or sample. Something that makes this invention so useful is that while the vapors/chemical evidence is being recovered, the portable kit also includes portable gas chromatography and mass spectrometry machines which can analyze the substance on the spot. This helps save time and brings in reliable results (so far when it was tested by Tom Bruno). The kit is built to be safe as well. It runs on compressed air rather than electricity.

This article is significant in the field of forensics because it is about a new invention that could improve the way investigators recover chemical evidence. The kit provides an easy and quick way to recover and analyze evidence, which something that would normally take at hours/days. However, there is a drawback that was mentioned in the article: this new invention is not as sensitive as the machines in labs. The inventor Tom Bruno is already working on ways to fix this problem. When improved, the NIST kit will definitely change the way forensic investigators recover chemical evidence for the better.

This article was well written and gave lots of detail as to how this machine works (and even provides a picture). I think it would be helpful to see more contrasts and similarities between this new machine vs the ones at the lab. The article mainly focuses on the  way it worked.  I feel as if the article could also add in the number of tests that this invention tested positive in (since the article only mentioned 3 substances which were the chemical compound coumarin, the explosive TNT, and diesel fuel). Obviously, three is not enough to fully determine how well this machine actually works. It would enhance the article to mention specifics like that and to mention whether this invention has been used in a real criminal case yet.