A new type of ion mobility spectrometer (Model TR-IMS) especially suitable for black powder determination has been fabricated by the DICP research team of “Rapid Separation & Determination Reearch ” led by Prof. Haiyang Li. The new spectrometer consisted of a titration reaction region, and its sensitivity for black powder determination is more than one million fold higher than the conventional IMS, namely, from the mg scale reported in literature up to the pg scale. Their results were published in Anal. Chem.(http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac400337s).
The DICP achievement has aroused extensive interest, and Prof. Haiyang Li was interviewed by the reporter of the “Science Now” column of the Science journal on the invention background, application and commercialization perspectives of the new instrument.
(http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/05/device-sniffs-out-black-powder-e.html?ref=hp). Prof. Herbert Hill, an authoritative expert in IMS, remarked on this new invention as follows:“The ion titration-ion mobility spectrometer put forward by this research team is an important breakthrough in black powder determination, and will have broad application prospect. ”
