Firm’s device screens liquids for flight

Are you tired of having airport security screeners toss away your bottles of water, shampoo or lotion? Change is on the way in some parts of the world.

Battelle, a nonprofit research and development organization in Ohio, has built a screening device that London’s Heathrow Airport began installing recently to test liquids carried by passengers onto planes. Heathrow Airport screeners will begin using the device in January, when the European Union will start allowing some liquids, aerosols and gels onto planes under a phased timetable.

In the U.S., Transportation Security Administration officials are looking into several technologies for liquids screening. Battelle officials say their liquids scanner, the LS10, is among those devices.

But the TSA says you shouldn’t expect to carry your favorite bottle of soda or shampoo onboard at U.S. airports in the near future.

"Liquid explosives are a serious threat, and we aren’t ready to move away from the ban on liquids," the TSA said in a statement.

The Battelle screening device uses a radio frequency wave and an ultrasonic pulse that are passed through the liquids so the device can assess the contents by analyzing the signals after they pass through.

The LS10 device looks like a slot machine. An airport screener places a bottle of liquid into an opening in the machine and then pulls down a large black lever, which starts the testing mechanism. The device can be used with see-through or opaque bottles, metal cans or ceramic containers.

The test takes two to five seconds per container.

To start, Heathrow will let passengers carry onboard medicine and duty-free liquids bought in the airport. It plans to ease its policy to allow other liquids within a year or so.

In Europe and in the U.S., passengers are not allowed to bring containers with more than 3.4 ounces of liquid in carry-on bags onto a commercial plane.

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Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times