The use of thermal desorption in monitoring for the chemical weapons demilitarization program†
Abstract
Under international treaty, the United States and Russia are disposing of their aging stockpile of chemical weapons. Incineration and chemical neutralization are options for sites in the United States, although Russia prefers the latter. The storage and disposal of bulk and chemical agents and weapons involve unique hazards of handling extremely toxic materials. There are three major areas of concern — the storage stockpile, the disposal area, and the discovery and destruction of “found” material not considered part of the stockpile. Methods have been developed to detect the presence of chemical agents in the air, and these are used to help assure worker protection and the safety of the local population. Exposure limits for all chemical agents are low, sometimes nanograms per cubic meter for worker control limits and picograms per cubic meter for general population limits. There are three types of monitoring used in the USA: alarm, confirmation, and historical. Alarm monitors are required to give relatively immediate real-time responses to agent leaks. They are simple to operate and rugged, and provide an alarm in near real-time (generally a few minutes). Alarm monitors for the demilitarization program are based on sorbent pre-concentration followed by thermal desorption and simple