Journals don't run waste water treatment plants. They don't run cities. They don't run drug enforcement agencies. College students attempt to make things for the sake of making them. To see if they can, to demonstrate their understanding of concepts, and to demonstrate their ability to make them. They make up uses for their inventions after the fact the same way a porn movie might have a story attached to it, but the porn movie isn't about a pizza delivery. Just because the students said this could be used to catch drug manufacturers does not mean it will ever be sued that way. There are a lot of holes in that story, just like in porn movies.