Protection Against Chemical Warfare Agents

Chemical warfare agents are toxic chemicals controlled by the Chemical WeaponsConvention (CWC).Chemical warfare agents have been produced and used on a large scale. Tear gas grenadeswere used in 1914 by the French army at the outbreak of the First World War, but it was notuntil the German army used chlorine near Ypres in 1915 that the world entered the modernera of chemical warfare. The development and use of chemical warfare agent continuedfollowing the First World War despite the signing of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, whichbanned the first use of chemical weapons.Concerns within the military troops and defense communities over possible terrorist use aswell as the requirements of a verifiable CWC, have driven the development and application ofanalytical methods for the detection and identification of chemical warfare agents.Analytical methods that are currently used for the detection and identification of chemicalwarfare agents are reviewed and classified by the number of dimensions of information theyprovide.Recent world events involving the possibility of use chemical warfare agents have increasedthe need to develop an environmentally friendly universal decontaminating solution thatpossesses non-corrosive and non-toxic properties for the rapid neutralization of lethalchemical warfare agents. Decontamination systems are important because they allow rapiddecomposition of the toxic compounds.