Spectrometer suitability for substance id?

[Blue Druid]

There's a new spectrometer on kickstarter right now - SpecShot - and while it's intended for water contaminant identification I'm wondering about it's suitability for identifying drugs & possible adulterants.
I know this's been raised in the past with other spectrometers but a lot depends on the specs & wavelength used - which is all over my head.

Can someone with a knowledge of spectrometry comment on the technical details?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1758749515/specshot

Dimensions: 50mm x 5.0 mm x 40mm (1.97 “ x 1.97 “ x 1.58”)

Connection: Micro B USB (note USB A Shown on Prototype). Optional Bluetooth upgrade with JY-MCU HC-06 V1.03 Bluetooth Transceiver.

Power consumption: ~4.5 V (USB) to ~5.5V (2x CR2032 Lithium Coin Batteries) –Peak current draw ~ 0.150 Amperes (Momentarily). Auto-disconnects from power between use to maximize battery life. (Est. 2 years with normal use).

Drivers/Software: None required for use. Recognized by most computers as human HID device (keyboard). Internet connection required. Driver provided for reprogramming firmware (via USBasp).

Processor: 16 Mhz ATMEGA328 PU Microcontroller. 32KB Flash memory, 1KB EEPROM (Enough to store 5 scans at a time).

Lamp: White 5mm TO LED. 16cd
Detector: Clear 5mm TO Phototransistor. Peak wavelength efficiency ~ 940 nm. Measured wavelength 380 to 1100 nm.

Optics:

Diffraction Grating: Holographic Linear 1000 lines/mm.

Slit: 250 um.

Optical resolution: Estimated 5-10 nm.

Min volume of water it can handle is 10ml & while sensitivity is uncertain as yet it can detect saline to 100 ppm, don't know what this implies about sensitivity to other substances.

Obviously an issue would be buildng a reference library of pure samples for comparison, but assuming this is doable would the spectrometer be suitable for drug identification. If so I'm thinking it could be handy for basic drug idientification at festivals & the like.

Thanks

 

[endotropic]

Lamp: White 5mm TO LED. 16cd
Detector: Clear 5mm TO Phototransistor. Peak wavelength efficiency ~ 940 nm. Measured wavelength 380 to 1100 nm.

To identify drugs with a spectrometer I believe you need a lamp and detector capable of producing/analyzing wavelengths in the UV range. 380-1100nm covers the range of visible light not UV, so I don't think this will be useful for drug ID purposes.

 

[Roger&Me]

visible spectrometry is not suitable for qualitative analysis, we've done this thread a couple times before relative to similar products.

 

[Blue Druid]

Ok, thought it was worth checking out. Thanks for the info.

 

[Roger&Me]

To identify drugs with a spectrometer I believe you need a lamp and detector capable of producing/analyzing wavelengths in the UV range. 380-1100nm covers the range of visible light not UV, so I don't think this will be useful for drug ID purposes.

honestly i'm not even sure how useful UV would be. so many compounds absorb similarly in that range.

you really need something like IR, NMR, chromatographic techniques (e.g. GC/MS), etc to yield any useful qualitative information. unfortunately i think the days of feasible at-home drug identification via spectroscopy are still far off.

 

[AromaticNitrogen]

If you had an idea of what you were looking for, IR+UV could be viable. I've had occasions in which identification was based solely on these two. I also performed the synthesis, but that's beside the point. You'd have better luck if dealing with conjugated systems and having access to a spectral database. Vis spec though, probably not. As stated above, NMR and Chromatography are the way to go in unknown id.