Chemical Clues: Real-time Forensic Analysis of Drugs and Explosives

Chemical Clues: Real-time Forensic

Analysis of Drugs and Explosives
From Pittcon Jul 1 2024
Reviewed by Danielle Ellis, B.Sc.

ought Leaders
Arian van Asten
Professor in Forensic Analytical Chemistry
University of Amsterdam

In this interview conducted at Pittcon 2024 in San Diego, we spoke to Professor Arian van
Asten about advancements in the chemical analysis of drugs and explosives using portable
NIR spectroscopy and its significant impact on improving on-scene investigation methods
for law enforcement agencies.

Could you please introduce yourself and discuss what

led you to focus on the chemical analysis of drugs and
explosives within forensic analytical chemistry?
My name is Arian van Asten. I am a professor of forensic analytical chemistry at the Van 't
Hoff Institute of Molecular Sciences of the University of Amsterdam. Before that, I worked
for a long time at the Netherlands Forensic Institute.

I have a PhD in analytical chemistry and a passion for forensic science. I am involved in
many different projects focusing on a wide array of evidence materials and analysis
methods, but my special interest is in the analysis of drugs and explosives. What makes
them special is that these chemicals are directly related to certain types of crimes.

Could you briefly describe the main challenges that law

enforcement agencies face in some on-scene chemical
identification of drugs and explosives that are being
used in these crime scenes?
Starting with illicit drugs, the US is in the midst of the opioid crisis. This translates to
forensic experts seeing an increasing number of cases. The caseload is very high, and the

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Chemical Clues: Real-time Forensic Analysis of Drugs and Explosives

chemical complexity of the samples requiring analysis has also increased. It is more difficult
to analyze them correctly.

With respect to explosives, this is a challenging area because of the chemical diversity that
is encountered. You have organic and inorganic materials, so typically, one single analytical
technique does not suffice in a given case.

In addition, there are cases in which intact explosives are present, which we call pre-
explosion cases, and cases after an explosion. These two settings yield completely different
samples to analyze.

Image Credit: PowerUp/Shutterstock.com

How does your research address some of these

challenges?
The work that I presented at the Pittcon Conference allows people to conduct chemical
analysis in the field using portable technologies that do not require high-end laboratory
conditions.

This is focused explicitly on rapid chemical identification of drugs and explosives with
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Chemical Clues: Real-time Forensic Analysis of Drugs and Explosives

operators who do not need a chemistry background. I try to advance forensic analytical
chemistry in this way.

As a forensic or analytical chemistry expert, I

think the challenge is to create a methodology Pittcon 2025: Mar 1-5
that allows non-experts to do complex chemical
analyses themselves in a simple and error-free Register for Pittcon 2025
manner. If measurements fail because
controlling the instrument is too complicated, Boston Convention and

then we have to make it simpler! This would Exhibition Center

Boston, MA
ultimately allow law enforcement professionals to
identify drugs and explosives robustly and
instantly.

What led to the selection of near-infrared (NIR)

spectroscopy as the primary technology for your
research, and how does it compare to other portable
analysis technologies?
There are several options or routes that you can consider, such as mobile mass
spectrometry, electrochemistry, and colorimetric reactions. Then, there are several
spectroscopic methods to consider: Raman, infrared, and near-infrared. We chose near
spectroscopy, as it lends itself very well to miniaturization. You can have very small, almost
pocket-sized, near-infrared spectrometers, and they are extremely rapid. Using the
technology we work with, you record a reflectance spectrum in a few seconds.

When people talk about rapid analysis, they sometimes introduce methods that take a few
minutes. If you talk to professionals who operate within law enforcement or customs, a few
minutes on the scene doing a measurement can feel like a lifetime. That makes near
spectroscopy very attractive. Within 10 to 20 seconds, I can do multiple measurements on
the same sample.

How does the miniaturized MEMS NIR sensor integrate

with existing law enforcement procedures for drug and
explosive detection? What are its key advantages?
For illicit drugs, for example, the first step in the field is often a colorimetric reaction. This is
challenging because people in the field have to add liquids to a sample to observe color,

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Chemical Clues: Real-time Forensic Analysis of Drugs and Explosives

and they are not necessarily trained to do so.

We use reflectance sensors, where people simply place a glass vial with a small amount of
powder directly on the sensor, and then press scan. There is no sample preparation, no
complex instructions. This is a very convenient process both in the field and in a laboratory
situation where you are carrying out high-volume screening.

Pittcon Thought Leader: Arian Van Asten

Can you elaborate on the dedicated data analysis

strategy you have developed, particularly the role of
Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Net Analyte
Signal (NAS) in improving accuracy?
Credit is due here to Dr. Henk-Jan Ramaker from TIPb. He did and does a lot of the model
development and the chemometrics (advanced data analysis).

This is also where one of the technique's challenges comes in. Imagine you are in a
forensic setting, and you have a sample with an unknown composition. You have an idea
that it could contain explosives or illicit drugs, depending on the context of the case, but you
are not sure. The sample is also not pure.

A typical street sample of a drug can contain several other substances in addition to the
psychoactive substance of interest. This includes adulterants, diluents, or tableting agents.
When taking a measurement, you will get a composite signal with spectral features of all

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these components. So here, we need data science to help us decipher the complex signal
and tell us what compounds are present and at what level.

You can take a machine learning approach, but that typically requires huge amounts of
data. We can measure thousands of street samples, for which we have used other
techniques like GC-MS to determine the composition. We use that knowledge to look for
similar signals if we have an unknown and suggest its composition.

What Dr. Ramaker has developed is much more elegant. He takes pure compound spectra
of all the known possible constituents in a sample for a given type of drug. With this limited
set of spectral reference data, he subsequently 'explains' the observed signal. This is much
faster and requires less reference data for a functional model. You, for instance, only need
the NIR spectra for 10-15 pure compounds to fit all cocaine street formulations.

Have you noticed an increase in complexity in samples

over time, or do you think the instruments are getting
better at characterizing the large variety of compounds
that are in a sample?
I think both are true. We have more analytical capability to look at very low levels of
substances within samples and chemically understand what is going on.

Chemical profiling is a different field that I am involved in. Here, we look at how materials
are degrading and what kind of raw materials are used. We are interested in impurities and
what they tell us about how the material was made or transported. You cannot typically do
that with portable spectroscopy. The technique is not sensitive enough. Compounds need
to be present at 5-10 wt% to be 'noticed'.

It is also true that the chemical complexity of illicit drug case samples has increased
considerably. There are two reasons for that.

First of all, because many countries work with lists of banned substances in their illicit drug
legal framework, we have seen 'creative' criminals producing so-called new psychoactive
substances (NPS). These designer drugs look and function very similar to their banned
analogs but are not listed and, therefore, do not fall under the illicit drug law. Selling such a
product is consequently not an illicit drug crime.

Governments tend to react when they see such new materials entering the illicit drug
market. They take legal action to place the new compound on the list of banned

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substances. But that fuels a rat race in which the criminal makes another variant when the
ban is successful. We have seen a rise in what we call designer drugs in many European
markets. Meanwhile, there is an additional challenge here in the US where the ongoing
opioid crisis is leading to drug street samples that contain multiple fentanyl analogs at
relatively low levels in the presence of cocaine or heroin.

Do you find there is a lot of open communication

between governmental organizations and researchers
in your field conducting research into these different
chemical profiles?
I think there is. The forensic science domain is open, but it is also a somewhat complex
situation. We are scientists, so we would like to explore new methods, develop them, and
share them to contribute to a safe and just society. But at the same time, there is always the
risk that this information falls into the wrong hands. This is especially important when you
investigate how to make explosives or how to characterize drugs of abuse.

Additionally, forensic science is typically a very international, open environment where

people are eager to share, whereas criminal justice is typically more closed, domestic, and
local. This makes it for instance difficult and rare to bring in foreign forensic experts to
report and testify in a case. This is also understandable, crime is a sensitive and typically a
national affair with local victims and perpetrators.

How close are the current technologies to meeting the

standards of forensic evidence admissible in court, and
what are the main problems that need to be addressed
to achieve that goal?
There are a couple of problems here. First of all, when you transition from science and
innovation to something used in forensic practice and being presented as forensic evidence
in court, you need to be very strict with respect to quality. You need validation studies and
accredited methods. You have accreditation bodies that come and check to make sure that
'you say what you do and do what you say.'

So you need to make that new method fit for purpose. You would have to show, quite
vigorously, that you know the error rates, you know when things go wrong, you know how to
spot an error and how to improve. This is very important because once that evidence is in
court, it can have a lot of impact, especially when drugs or explosives are involved. You
need it to be free of error.
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Of course, where work is done, errors are made; this is inevitable. But in a forensic setting,
you need to show that you have minimized and mitigated potential errors and that you have
a system in place to spot errors, correct them, and prevent them from happening in the
future. Forensic evidence can make a lot of difference to the people involved, including
suspects, victims, and family members, and therefore, must be of superior quality.

However, there is also the interesting question of when a forensic investigation is good
enough. When is there enough selectivity to say that, with a portable technique, you can do
a measurement in seconds and also present the findings with confidence in court? Here, as
a forensic scientist from academia, you can run into some conservatism and resistance.
People tend to rely on what they trust and have been using successfully in the past.
However, these trusted methods were once also highly innovative and groundbreaking!

To what extent can we depend on science to give us the

facts?
There is a clash here. If you are in court, then the judge, the people involved, the public
prosecutor, and the legal defense all have a very simple question. Did that person fire the
gun? Did the suspect produce these cocaine samples? However, forensic scientists and
experts need to take scientific uncertainty into account. When the expert involved tries to
explain this uncertainty, everybody starts to think, "You are the expert. Why are you telling
this difficult story? The question was very straightforward; just say yes or no based on your
expertise and experience". This is why forensic scientists and experts must also be great
communicators, being able and willing to explain difficult scientific aspects in a simple yet
convincing manner.

Could you discuss the collaborative nature of this

project with the Dutch Police, TIPb, and other partners?
Collaboration is essential to developing such a methodology and successfully introducing it
in forensic practice. For a lot of the research I do, I arrange a 'triangular collaboration'
involving academia, commercial companies, and users. I need forensic practice because
they need to tell me how an investigation is conducted and the problems and challenges
they face. They can also supply me with samples from actual cases rather than artificially
created samples. These are really valuable samples on which to test and develop the
methodology.

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At the same time, we need companies and technology to realize our ideas and develop
viable and robust instrumentation. A very powerful method may exist, but the research
group involved is often not capable of taking the next step and developing a product that
could really make a difference. Many innovations fail because of this. Involving a company
that is able to develop, introduce, and maintain a product is the magic ingredient that you
need to be successful.

In practical terms, how easy would you say it is for law

enforcement personnel to use the near-infrared-based
platform we discussed earlier? Is there any training that
is currently needed to use it?
Basic instruction would suffice. It is very simple. You have the platform. You take the
PowderPuck, a small portable benchtop, and put it on the table. You take a glass vial, put in
0.5 to 1 gram of a powder sample, put it on the instrument, and press scan. That is it. I think
a 5-year-old child could get it right.

How does your presentation at Pittcon contribute to the

broader conversation about technological
advancements in forensic science?
I have attended several of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) sessions here. You hear a
lot about forensic science and the advancements in several areas, but there is clearly a lot
of interest in portable technology and bringing that analytical technology out of the lab and
into the field.

When you go out here on the exhibition floor, there is an interesting transition ongoing in
terms of not just technology being presented but also computing possibilities. This allows
you to create products that transfer data wirelessly, get results on your mobile phone, and
connect to central servers where powerful computers carry out complex data analyses and
send results back to the user. I think that we will see many more of these types of
developments opening up a whole range of possibilities.

Years ago, you would go into the field with a Raman instrument, and everything would have
to take place on that single instrument. But this limitation does not exist anymore. Now, you
can take the measurements, send the data to a central location, and share it with other
users.

Experts can also examine the data from a distance and perform a quality check on the data

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in seconds. To the user, this seems almost instantaneous as results appear on the
smartphone or tablet. But in the mean time a lot is actually happening 'under the hood'. I
think that these data science developments will revolutionize analytical chemistry.

What are you most looking forward to at Pittcon San

Diego this year?
The presentations and meetings with scientists are nice, but I think what makes Pittcon
very special is the exhibition. It is massive! There is no equivalent to that in Europe or the
Netherlands, and I find that very inspiring.

There is all this energy and activity, particularly when it comes to analytical chemistry. It is
never only the science, right? There must be instrumental and technological developments
to back it up and really make a difference, and that is what you see on the expo floor.

As we mark the 75th anniversary of Pittcon this year,

could you share your first memory or experience of
attending this conference and how it has impacted your
view of the scientific community?
The first time I attended Pittcon was in 2014 in Chicago, and again in 2017. When you go
out on the expo floor for the first time, it is mind-blowing. I had never seen anything like that
before, even having been an analytical chemist for many years. You get this feeling of really
getting into it, talking to people, touching instrumentation, and hearing about great ideas.

It is inspirational to see other types of applications that can trigger questions like, "Oh, what
would the forensic angle be here? Could it be useful? Could I use this to solve a crime?"
Then you start talking to people. Some of the projects that I am involved with have actually
emerged from these types of discussions.

About Arian Van Asten

Arian van Asten is a full-time professor in forensic analytical chemistry and on-scene
chemical analysis at the van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, Faculty of Science,
University of Amsterdam. His research interests include the chemical profiling of explosives
and drugs, the analysis of (bio)markers of CWA (Chemical Warfare Agent) exposure, rapid

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chemical identification at the crime scene with portable

instruments, the forensic use of comprehensive 2D
chromatography, chemical imaging of forensic traces, and the use
of data science and A.I. to generate forensic chemical intelligence
from large volume forensic case data. In addition, he is the
director of the Master Forensic Science at the Institute for
Interdisciplinary Studies of the University of Amsterdam, the only
2-year full-time MSc program in forensic science in the
Netherlands. Together with prof dr Maurice Aalders he leads the
Co van Ledden Hulsebosch Center (CLHC), a national forensic
network organization named after the first Dutch forensic science
pioneer. Prior to his transfer to the University of Amsterdam in 2018, he worked for over 12
years at the Netherlands Forensic Institute as a member of the management team,
department head, manager of R&D programs and forensic coordinator of complex,
international cases, including bomb attacks and airplane crashes. He has (co)authored over
80 peer-reviewed scientific publications on (forensic) analytical chemistry and is the author
of the academic course book ‘Chemical Analysis for Forensic Evidence’ that was published
at the end of 2022.

This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by
Pittcon.

For more information on this source, please visit Pittcon.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are those of the interviewee and do not
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