Analysis of Chemical Warfare Agents: General Overview, LC-MS Review, In- House LC-ESI-MS Methods and Open Literature Bibliography

摘要

Ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention by more than 165 States Parties has reduced the risk of chemical warfare agent use, but there still remains a concern that other parties may make use of these weapons against civilian or military targets. Concerns within the defense and homeland security communities over possible terrorist use as well as the requirements for a verifiable Chemical Weapons Convention have driven the development of analytical methods such as liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) for the detection and identification of chemical warfare agents. This paper provides a general overview of chemical warfare agents and analytical methods for their analysis, a focused review of LC-MS applications, a summary of in- house LC-MS methods developed at DRDC Suffield, and a comprehensive bibliography of analytical open literature papers dealing with chemical warfare agent detection and identification. The review sections provide the homeland security and defense communities with an overview of chemical warfare agents and analytical methods for their determination. Researchers interested in developing new methods for chemical warfare agents may use the reviewed material to quickly ascertain the state of development of analytical methods, in particular LC-MS methods, for chemical warfare agents. The reviewed materials will be used for reference purposes during the development of high field asymmetric waveform ion mobility spectrometry (FAIMS) mass spectrometry, a new analytical technique with the potential to rapidly separate and identify chemical warfare agents. The report concludes with 67 references. Appendix A is a 454-item bibliography of open literature analytical methods for the detection and identification of chemical warfare agents, their degradation products, and related compounds. Paper copies of each paper are held at DRDC Suffield and this comprehensive database of methods continues to be updated regularly using Procite software.