FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Investigation into TSA non-dipping test strips
Old Jul 11, 2012 | 2:12 pm
  #22  
BubbaLoop
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 1,444
Originally Posted by TSORon
One word. Vapor. Unless of course you are claiming that hydrogen peroxide does not produce vapors, in which case I have to ask what methods you use as a “professional”.
Shure you can vaporize H2O2 - there are machines that do that specifically to sterilize environments. But a normal solution of H2O2 does not release any detectible level of vapors. The boiling point of H2O2 is 150 C, quite a lot higher than water. Add to that the fact that strips have low sensitivity and you have a chemical impossibility.

But thanks for confirming that the strips are indeed intended to detect hydrogen peroxide. That confirms to me that this is really security theater. As I stated before, there is no test strip that can detect peroxides by being waved above a flask of a peroxide solution. And I have pretty good knowledge in this particular field.

Originally Posted by TSORon
They don’t detect “explosives”, they detect chemicals.
Coffee is a soup of chemicals. So is tea. The air is full of chemicals, such as nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide. Obviously, these strips are supposed to respond to a particular group of chemicals, which you now confirmed to be peroxides.

Originally Posted by GaryD
You again claim that "they [TSA strips] detect chemicals," but you never answer BubbaLoop's question, from June 9:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/18894842-post54.html:



Why ever not?
I´m waiting on that too.

Last edited by BubbaLoop; Jul 11, 2012 at 3:07 pm Reason: typo
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