Back
Direct gas-phase detection of nerve and blister warfare agents utilizing active capillary plasma ionization mass spectrometry.
Journal article

Direct gas-phase detection of nerve and blister warfare agents utilizing active capillary plasma ionization mass spectrometry.

  • Wolf JC Department of Chemistry and Applied Bioscience, ETH Zurich, HCI E329, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland. jan- christoph.wolf@org.chem.ethz.ch.
  • Schaer M Federal Office for Civil Protection FOCP, Spiez Laboratory, Analytical Chemistry Branch, CH-3700 Spiez, Switzerland. Martin.Schaer@babs.admin.ch.
  • P Siegenthaler P Federal Office for Civil Protection, Spiez Laboratory, Analytical Chemistry Branch, CH-3700 Spiez, Switzerland. peter.siegenthaler@babs.admin.ch.
  • Zenobi R Department of Chemistry and Applied Bioscience, ETH Zurich, HCI E329, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland. zenobi@org.chem.ethz.ch.
Show more…
  • 2015-08-27
Published in:
  • European journal of mass spectrometry (Chichester, England). - 2015
English Ultrasensitive direct gas-phase detection of chemical warfare agents (CWAs) is demonstrated utilizing active capillary plasma ionization and triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (MS) instrumentation. Four G- agents, two V-agents and various blistering agents [including sulfur mustard (HD)] were detected directly in the gas phase with limits of detection in the low parts per trillion (ng m(-3)) range. The direct detection of HD was shown for dry carrier gas conditions, but signals vanished when humidity was present, indicating a possible direct detection of HD after sufficient gas phase pretreatment. The method provided sufficient sensitivity to monitor directly the investigated volatile CWAs way below their corresponding minimal effect dose, and in most cases even below the eight hours worker exposure concentration. In general, the ionization is very soft, with little to no in-source fragmentation. Especially for the G-agents, some dimer formation occurred at higher concentrations. This adds complexity, but also further selectivity, to the corresponding mass spectra. Our results show that the active capillary plasma ionization is a robust, sensitive, "plug and play" ambient ionization source suited (but not exclusively) to the very sensitive detection of CWAs. It has the potential to be used with portable MS instrumentation.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/238625
Statistics
Document views: 16 File downloads: