Analysis of Chemical Warfare (CW) Agents and Degradation Products by Liquid Chromatography (LC)

Abstract

The state of the art of liquid chromatography (LC) in respect to the analysis of chemical warfare (CW) agents and their degradation products is presented in this overview. The CW agents considered are the well-known nerve agents (e.g. sarin, tabun, soman and VX) and blister agents (e.g. mustard gas and lewisite) as well as military tear gases. In general LC allows for the separation of non-polar, polar and ionic analytes due to the large variety possible in column packing material and solvent composition. All these analytes may sometimes be determined in one single analysis run using gradient elution. Although non-polar compounds as CW agents can be analysed by LC methods, which is an advantage in case they need to be determined directly in aqueous matrices, the main application of LC lies in the determination of the polar decomposition products of CW agents. These compounds encompass the organophosphonic acids, thiodiglycol and 2-chlorovinylarsonic acid. LC analysis procedures for these degradation products of nerve agents, mustard gas and lewisite, respectively, in various environmental matrices (ground water, sea water etc.) have been developed. The greatest problem, however, in LC is the detection of analytes. A large number of LC detectors is currently available or still under development for the detection of CW agents and their degradation products. Detectors are sometimes specifically designed for certain types of analytes such as organophosphonic acids or sulfur containing chemicals. The various detection systems are used as a guide to present the current available LC methods in this paper. Mass spectrometry is treated in this respect as an expensive but more universal detector. The description of the various LC methods for the analysis of CW agents and their degradation products is illustrated with examples. The main contents of the paper is reflected in the vufoils, which are added to this abstract. For more details of the various LC methods reference is made to the list of publications.