Banned chemical warfare agents can now be detected at levels below current detection limits, claim researchers in the US. 

VX and Sarin are organophosphorus nerve agents. They have lethal doses lower than the nanogram per millilitre detection limits of conventional separation and detection methods. 

Joseph Caruso and colleagues at the University of Cincinnati coupled ion-pairing reversed phase HPLC with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry equipped with a collision/reaction cell. The technique achieved a 1000-fold improvement in the detection of hydrolysis products of VX and Sarin. Separation of the organophosphorus chemical warfare degradation products took less than 15 minutes. The researchers applied their method to soil and water samples, which, according to Caruso, shows good potential for speciation analysis in complex samples.

'Improvements in the chromatographic resolution through investigation of alternative liquid and gas chromatographic separation techniques coupled with atomic mass spectrometric detection are currently under way,' said Caruso.

Colin R Batchelor