Detection of hazardous liquids concealed in glass, plastic, and aluminum containers

The use of liquid explosives by terrorists has raised the attention to the use of hazardous liquids as threats to people, buildings and transportation systems. Hazardous liquids such as explosive mixtures, flammables or even chemical warfare agents (CWA) can be concealed in common containers and pass security checks undetected. This work presents three non invasive, non destructive detection approaches that can be used to characterize the content of common liquid containers and detect if the liquid is the intended or a concealed hazardous liquid. Fiber optic coupled Raman spectroscopy and Stand off Raman spectroscopy were used to inspect the content of glass and plastic bottles and thermal conductivity was used to asses the liquid inside aluminum cans. Raman spectroscopy experiments were performed at 532 nm, 488 nm and 785 nm excitation wavelengths. The hazardous liquids under consideration included CWA simulant DMMP, hydrogen peroxide, acetone, cyclohexane, ethanol and nitric acid. These techniques have potential use as a detector for hazardous liquids at a check point or to inspect suspicious bottles from a distance.