GENERAL APPROACHES TO THE ANALYSIS OF ARSENIC CONTAINING WARFARE AGENTS

摘要

Since the production, storage and military usage of any kind of chemical warfare agents (CWAs) is prohibited by international law threatening by these agents becomes more and more unlikely. Apart from terrorism presently the dominant problem with chemical weapons is the environmental hazard to the biosphere. In Germany for instance approximately 10.000 t of chemical warfare agents were dumped into the Baltic Sea, causing occasional accidents if fishermen collect rusty barrels with doubtful contents in their nets. At present little information is available if countries of the former USSR or Russia itself have problems with contaminated sites. However, in Germany a very specific site is the former Heeresmunitionsanstalt Ⅰ and Ⅱ at Loecknitz close to the German-Polish border (see figure 1). At this site Clark Ⅰ (chlorodiphenylarsine) and the so-called "Arsin oil" (combination of arsenic(Ⅲ) chloride, chlorodiphenylarsine and triphenylarsine) were stored and decanted in grenades during world war Ⅱ. After the war chemicals were decontaminated with bleach and / or burning. Today parts of the area show high arsenic contamination up to 20 mg / kg. Prior to the rehabilitation of this area various investigations have been carried out to estimate the environmental hazard and the risks for people living close to this site. Finally, a definite risk assessment is required to protect people working at the site during the rehabilitation project itself.