Once they’re ready, electronic sniffer dogs and neutron-emitting machines will quickly be able to check containers for illegal substances. (Source: Flickr/GlynLowe.com)Smugglers may have an even tougher time bringing illegal substances, weapons, radioactive material and chemical warfare agents into Europe now that scientists are developing technologies that will detect anything from illegal substances to a stowaway in shipping containers.

“The idea came about because customs officials need to check an ever-increasing number of containers — for this they need to check them fast without opening them,” explained Guillaume Sannié of France's Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

Currently, Sannié is coordinating the EU-funded C-BORD project, which is creating tools for customs agents to use to inspect containers expanding upon existing technologies.

Among the tools being developed is an evaporation-based test, which is an electronic device made up of several highly sensitive sensors each of which are able to detect a different chemical substance. This device allows the operator to detect illegal drugs, explosives, chemical agents and people.

Sannié describes the device as a sniffing dog. “We sniff the particles inside the container and analyze them as a sniffer dog would — except that unlike a sniffer dog the machine doesn't get tired.”

Another experimental tool being developed by the team is a machine known as a neutron generator to emit neutrons (particles helping to make up the nucleus of the atom) and firing them at the container (like an x-ray). Customs officers are able to determine the chemical composition of the contents of the container by measuring the resulting gamma rays produced.

Researchers are also investigating a tool that uses high-energy imaging to detect nuclear material present in the container.

Before the project finishes in October 2018, Sannié says the team will be testing its range of technologies at two ports — Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Gdansk in Poland as well as in Hungary, where the tests will take place on a land border.

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