Teams dealing with hazardous materials are often confronted by unmarked
containers. Now David Volz of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico
has invented a device to sample what is inside a mystery container. Clamped on a
drum or fastened to a flask it uses a pneumatic piston to puncture the
container, in an inert atmosphere if necessary. It then samples the contents.
The operator can be up to 30 metres away. The hose that carries the material to
the sampler can also be used to pump a neutralising chemical into the
container.
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