Patent ID: 6884997

Claim:
A dangerous substance detecting apparatus comprising: a chamber for accommodating a wiping member so as to expose a surface on which a sample is stuck, said sample being collected from an object under testing through wiping, and for heating of said chamber for accommodating said wiping member; first heating means for heating said chamber through resistive heating; second heating means for heating the surface of said wiping member by irradiating the surface of said wiping member with infrared rays through an optical window from the outside of said chamber to evaporate said sample; control means for controlling supplying alternately and not simultaneously power to said first heating means and to said second heating means, wherein said control means controls the power so that the power for said first heating means is powered off while the power for said second heating means is powered on, and so that the power for said second heating means is supplied in steps, and in each of the steps, the power for said second heating means is powered on for several seconds for heating the surface of said wiping member at a different temperature to evaporate, at an atmospheric pressure, a different kind of dangerous substance included in said sample; an ion source unit for ionizing said evaporated sample; a mass analysis unit for performing a mass analysis on ions of said evaporated sample; storage means for storing a data base including mass spectrographic date on dangerous substances; a data processing unit for performing date processing for comparing said data base read from said storage means with the result of the mass analysis made on the ions of the evaporated sample in each step, wherein said data processing unit determines whether or not a detected signal indicative of an ion having a predetermined m/e value has a strength exceeding a predetermined threshold, where m is the mass number of ions, and e is the valence of the ions, for detecting and identifying different kinds of dangerous substances; and display means for displaying the result of the comparison, wherein said display means displays that a dangerous substance is included in said sample when the strength of the detected signal exceeds said threshold, wherein said apparatus determines the presence or absence of a dangerous substance included in said sample based on the result of the mass analysis on the ions of said evaporated sample, and detects and identifies different kinds of dangerous substances.