Detection of sulfur mustard simulants using the microwave atmospheric pressure plasma optical emission spectroscopy method

Abstract

Sulfur mustard (SM) is one kind of highly toxic chemical warfare agent and easy to spread, while existing detection methods cannot fulfill the requirement of rapid response, good portability, and cost competitiveness at the same time. In this work, the microwave atmospheric pressure plasma optical emission spectroscopy (MW-APP-OES) method, taking the advantage of non-thermal equilibrium, high reactivity, and high purity of MW plasma, is developed to detect three kinds of SM simulants, i.e., 2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfide, dipropyl disulfide, and ethanethiol. Characteristic OES from both atom lines (C I and Cl I) and radical bands (CS, CH, and C2) is identified, confirming MW-APP-OES can preserve more information about target agents without full atomization. Gas flow rate and MW power are optimized to achieve the best analytical results. Good linearity is obtained from the calibration curve for the CS band (linear coefficients R2 > 0.995) over a wide range of concentrations, and a limit of detection down to sub-ppm is achieved with response time on the order of second. With SM simulants as examples, the analytical results in this work indicate that MW-APP-OES is a promising method for real-time and in-site detection of chemical warfare agents.

Facile Preparation of Polyacrylonitrile-Based Activated Carbon Fiber Felts for Effective Adsorption of Dipropyl Sulfide

“…Recently, Sharma et al [ 12 ] developed a chemical protective suit with spherical activated carbon as the inner adsorption material, and the results showed that the effective protection time of this protective suit against sulfur mustard could be more than 24 h, considering that sulfur mustard is one of the most dangerous chemical warfare agents due to its ease of manufacture and high destructiveness and is often used to evaluate the performance of chemical protective materials. However, due to the high toxicity and strict control of sulfur mustard, some chemicals such as dipropyl sulfide (DPS), with a similar chemical structure and lower toxicity, have also been used as a simulator of a chemical warfare agent for research in the lab [ 13 , 14 ]. For example, YANG et al [ 15 ] used nano-metal modified spherical activated carbon and used it as an adsorbent for the adsorption of DPS; the result showed that the equilibrium adsorption capacity of modified SAC towards DPS increased by 13.41% compared with that of pristine SAC, and the maximum adsorption capacity could be up to 34.34 mg/g.…”