Among the benefits of Raman spectroscopy is the ability to detect and identify a large number of disparate compounds with a single instrument. The existing handheld and portable Raman spectrometers have onboard spectral libraries of thousands of chemical signatures, which can be immediately cross-referenced for rapid identification. It may be beneficial for NIST and/or the major spectrometer manufacturers to expand their spectral libraries to include household toxins, and the most common cleaning products, allergens, pesticides, etc. encountered during a poison control response scenario.

Further, based upon our feasibility study below, it may be possible to inexpensively optimize the existing handheld Raman instruments for trace detection & identification applications via customized optical accessories and/or microscope objective lenses.