Chemical agents detection technology

Boiarski, A.A., Bowen, G.W., Durnford, J., Kenny, D.V. and Shaw, M.J., State-of-the-Art Report on Biological Warfare Agent Detection Technologies (Rep. No. SP0900-94-D-0002), Chemical and Biological Defense Information Analysis Center, Ft. Belvoir, 1995. 

T. G. Quinn, R. Gross, J. T. Ditillo, W. M. Lagna, Improved Lightweight Standoff Chemical Agent Detection Sensor, www.blockeng.com/paperl.htm, Proc. SPIE Electrooptical Technology for Remote Chemical Detection and Identification, (1997). 

Joint Chemical Agent Detector (JCAD) This detector will employ surface acoustic wave technology to detect nerve and blister agents. It will also allow detection of new forms of nerve agents. 

Charles E. Kolb, vice chair of the committee, memorandum to the committee on new technology to detect chemical agent and agent breakdown products on surfaces (with five enclosures on use of SIMS technique) dated March 22, 2000. 

The National Institute of Justice has put together multivolume compendiums of instrumentation relevant to chemical and biological weapons detection. However, none of these books contains a critical review of the effectiveness of the technologies. One instrument included in the publication is a portable, handheld, ion mobility spectrometry chemical agent monitor with moderate to high selectivity, but only when used in open spaces, far from vapor sources such as smoke, cleaning compounds, and fumes. This would seem to make it useless in the battlefield. Another listed chemical agent monitor has a below 5% false positive rate. With one in 20 false positives, no one could reasonably act upon an alarm. 

Shipboard automatic liquid agent detector (SALAD). The technologies to be used in the SALAD have recently been reviewed, but no decision has been made on the final selection. The instrument is designed to be an automated, externally mounted liquid agent detector capable of detecting G-type and VX nerve agents as well as vesicant chemical agents. 

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