The new research at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) has developed a device that will sniff out illegal wads of U.S currency that flows in billions to Mexico border.

According to the researchers, the technique, known as the Bulk Currency Detection System (BCDS) can smell money by taking a gas sample from wherever officers think the money might be hidden, be on it travelers, in their luggage or stored somewhere in vehicles or shipping containers. Using sensors, the device can analyze samples in less than a minute. This way, the device will be able to smell and root out illegally large amount of U.S. currency.

When developing the device, the researchers first had to figure out which gases money emits and how fast that happens. It turned out that the gases are a set of trace chemicals, including aldehydes, furans and organic acids.

It involves gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), a widely used analytical technique .This method is already used to analyze vapors to detect drugs and explosives, as well as to investigate the causes of fires and identify unknown compounds. It will work effectively and will take few minutes for border inspections.

The current way to uncover smuggled money depends on checks by guards or trained dogs, without the benefit of any devices, but now this device will mimic and replace dogs' sniffing functions.

Suiqiong Li, Ph.D., a member of the research team says, "The system would extract gas samples from the traveler or from bags, vehicles and shipping containers. It would detect the trace currency emission signature even in the presence of car exhaust, perfumes, food and a range of temperatures, atmospheric pressures and relative humidity".

It will take two to three years before the device will be rolled out into a trial period and into the hands of border patrol officers.