Computer Vision-Based Portable System for Nitroaromatics Discrimination

A computer vision-based portable measurement system is presented in this report. The system is based on a compact reader unit composed of a microcamera and a Raspberry Pi board as control unit. This reader can acquire and process images of a sensor array formed by four nonselective sensing chemistries. Processing these array images it is possible to identify and quantify eight different nitroaromatic compounds (both explosives and related compounds) by using chromatic coordinates of a color space.The system is also capable of sending the obtained information after the processing by aWiFi link to a smartphone in order to present the analysis result to the final user.The identification and quantification algorithm programmed in theRaspberry board is easy and quick enough to allow real time analysis. Nitroaromatic compounds analyzed in the range of mg/L were picric acid, 2,4-dinitrotoluene (2,4-DNT), 1,3-dinitrobenzene (1,3-DNB), 3,5-dinitrobenzonitrile (3,5-DNBN), 2-chloro-3,5-dinitrobenzotrifluoride (2-C-3,5-DNBF), 1,3,5-trinitrobenzene (TNB), 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), and tetryl (TT)

Computer vision for understanding catalyst degradation kinetics

We report a computer vision strategy for the extraction and colorimetric analysis of catalyst degradation and product formation kinetics from video footage. The degradation of palladium(II) pre-catalyst systems to form 'Pd black' is investigated as a widely relevant case study for catalysis and materials chemistries. Beyond the study of catalysts in isolation, investigation of Pd-catalyzed Miyaura borylation reactions revealed informative correlations between colour parameters (most notably ΔE, a colour-agnostic measure of contrast change) and the concentration of product measured by off-line analysis (NMR and LC-MS). The breakdown of such correlations helped inform conditions under which reaction vessels were compromised by air ingress. These findings present opportunities to expand the toolbox of non-invasive analytical techniques, operationally cheaper and simpler to implement than common spectroscopic methods. The approach introduces the capability of analyzing the macroscopic 'bulk' for the study of reaction kinetics in complex mixtures, in complement to the more common study of microscopic and molecular specifics