908 Devices recently received a significant order for 25 of its MX908 handheld mass spectrometers from Ukraine’s health ministry. The devices – equipped with the Aero module for aerosol detection – will form part of environmental testing kits designed to identify trace levels of hazardous substances, including explosives and chemical agents, in post-conflict zones.
Here, we speak with 908 Devices co-founder and CEO, Kevin J. Knopp, about the use of mass spec in post-war settings, lessons from past crises, and how 908 Devices is adapting laboratory techniques for field use.
What are some of the testing needs we tend to see in a post-war setting?
A post-war emergency is often a widespread ecological disaster. You have concerns ranging from soil contamination and air quality to surface hazards and water purity. There are many unseen dangers – chemical residues, environmental toxins, industrial waste from damaged plants, or even the release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and unexploded ordnance and all the trace chemical residues left behind. Also think about the aftermath of large-scale fires: burning plastics, batteries, consumer goods – all the things we surround ourselves with in modern life.
Although we can’t address all areas, the scope of need is enormous. You’re looking at a massive environmental monitoring challenge.
With regard to the situation in Ukraine, are there any lessons we can learn from past crises?
With Ukraine, we’re talking about a fully functioning society that’s now been damaged. Everything from fuel depots and nuclear power plants to oil storage facilities and industrial locations could be considered at risk. Even something as seemingly mundane as a residential home can release dangerous toxins when destroyed, whether into the air or onto surfaces people have to work through or clean up.
There are certainly parallels to other situations. In fact, many handheld analytical technologies in use today were born out of needs that emerged post-9/11. A lot of the people on our team entered this space back then. My last company was created in 2002, directly after 9/11, and we began working on these types of handheld analytical devices. That history has shaped where we are today.
So even if you think back to an event like 9/11 – where industrial buildings collapsed – the ash and contaminants released caused serious health effects. We’ve all read the stories of firefighters and first responders who have developed cancer or other serious health issues as a result. It’s been a tragic long-term toll, and it highlighted the need for technology that can help detect and monitor environmental hazards.
More recently, the Iraq War was another large-scale example. Many of us at 908 Devices have experience from that time – deploying technologies into complex field environments to help responders, often military personnel, be more aware of their surroundings and the hazards they were encountering.
Looking at what Ukraine is likely dealing with, there's a very broad range of needs. Everything from air, water, soil, and surface contaminants, to radiological concerns, explosives, chemical hazards, and heavy metals. The MX908 is a part of that solution. Of course, they’ll need a whole array of tools and technologies to support recovery, but what we offer plays a specific and important role in helping responders understand and navigate the hazards in the field.
How do you decide which applications of your technology to focus on?
If you think about the need for advanced chemical detection – what we call that broader category – the real value is being able to get a lab-grade response when and where you need it. That means something portable, something that can be used by someone who may be an expert in their field, like a first responder or military user, but not necessarily an expert in chromatography, mass spec, or spectroscopy.
That naturally points you toward applications where the answers are critical – where they’re needed to drive the next step in a workflow, and where that decision might impact someone’s safety or even their life. You're not just testing for spoiled milk in a fridge; you’re trying to determine if a space is safe to enter, or if a substance is dangerous, or if a threat is present.
From day one at 908 Devices, we’ve approached it with that mission in mind – providing lab-quality answers in time-critical environments. These analytical platforms are capable of covering a very wide range of analytes and use cases. But what we’ve done is focus on what really matters in critical environments – zooming in on those high-priority, high-consequence applications.
We think about areas where the technology excels, but our mission is infused in everything we do.
Tell us about the MX908 – what makes it unique?
What’s unique about the MX908 is that it’s mass spec-based, but in what we call a handheld form factor – about the size of a child’s lunchbox.
The real advantage of mass spectrometry is its sensitivity and selectivity, and we've worked very hard to preserve both. It's a very sensitive device – which, as you can imagine in these kinds of settings, is critical. You need to be able to detect substances at low levels, before they pose a harm.
We’ve also developed an attachment for the MX908 called the Aero module. Essentially, it pulls in air and deposits any aerosols onto a mesh, which is then flash-heated so the mass spec can detect what's present. It can capture aerosolized solids or liquids, and detect them at very low levels. That entire process is automated, fast, and repeatable.
If you're dealing with aerosolized fentanyl, or potential chemical warfare agents, this tool gives you early warning at actionable levels. What makes the MX908 particularly valuable in these contexts is that it preserves lab-grade capabilities in a purpose-built, rugged, and field-deployable form.
It’s not as general-purpose as a full lab instrument, of course – but within its application space, it can detect hundreds to thousands of analytes, and at the sensitivity and selectivity that really matter. That’s one of the main reasons we see customers adopt it for these high-stakes, critical applications.
Are there any other application areas on your radar?
The potential applications are fairly broad, and where we really like to focus is in areas where we can continue expanding our relationship with existing customers. We’ve deployed over 3,000 devices across our portfolio.
For example, illicit drug detection is one area that continues to evolve and where we’re very active. We leverage the selectivity of mass spec and optical techniques to keep evolving and updating the target libraries – adding or modifying compounds to stay aligned with what’s most relevant for our users.
Fentanyl gets a lot of attention, and for good reason, but there are many related compounds too – like xylazine, nitazenes, cocaine, and others. There’s a whole ecosystem of synthetic and designer drugs that keep emerging. With our classifier for fentanyl, which uses a machine learning–driven algorithm, we can go beyond exact matching to identify broader categories or families of chemicals. There's a lot of exciting work just in continuing to support that growing need.
Another area we’re developing is air monitoring. With the Aero module that attaches to our products, and now with something we call the Beacon – essentially an enclosure that houses the MX908 along with additional batteries and communications modules – we can deploy these systems for remote or distributed environmental monitoring at large-scale events, industrial sites, or post-incident zones.
Coupling our broad, selective, and sensitive platforms with networked, early-warning capabilities for air monitoring and environmental hazards is a really exciting direction, all while continuing to evolve our core chemical detection capabilities based on what matters most to our users.
Are there any gaps you see in the handheld mass spec toolkit? Anything you're trying to address as you move forward?
We’re always looking for ways to make our tools simpler and more user-friendly.
The MX908 is probably still the only mass spec that a law enforcement officer can pull out of their car without even knowing it’s a mass spec, turn it on, and immediately start testing on-site – say, at the scene of an overdose. But there’s still more we can do to make that experience even more seamless and accessible, which we’re doing with the next generation of the device that is currently in development.
But we’re also super excited about expanding into optical spectroscopy. About a year ago, we acquired RedWave Technology in Danbury, Connecticut, which brought in FTIR technology. Many of us at 908 Devices had worked in this domain before, so it was a very natural fit.
Now we have two substantial platforms to build from – mass spectrometry and spectroscopy. These are both gold-standard analytical techniques in the lab, and we’re bringing them into the field. We’ve got robust roadmaps for both.
What drives that roadmap is talking to our customers. Understanding their needs and the hazards they face – whether that’s low-level exposure to toxic industrial materials in a routine house fire or a major environmental disaster – is what fuels our innovation.
Are there any lessons you could share about how to consistently innovate?
Building the right team is the key. You need a team that’s capable of innovating to get that very first product to market. But once you do that, the team has to evolve. It has to grow. You need to expand your capabilities as you move beyond the first product to a second, third, fourth, and start thinking in terms of portfolios. You go from dozens of devices in the field to thousands. That changes everything.
So, of course, the founding team is critical. But equally important is continuing to foster that culture of innovation, to build a team that is customer-curious and can scale with the business. You pick up processes as you grow, which is necessary, but you have to keep those processes light and nimble.
Honestly, the biggest lesson I’ve learned is: stay close to your customer. If you can get 90 percent of your organization to really understand, deeply and viscerally, what your customers do – ideally by going into the field, attending events, or just finding ways to stay engaged – then you’ll naturally build an innovative and sustainable roadmap. But if you lose that connection, innovation becomes much harder.
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