Chemical warfare agents control

In countries dealing with destruction of chemical warfare agents, control limits for exposure via surface contact of drinking water are needed, as are detection methods for their low levels in water, soil, or foodstuffs. Some of the toxicity parameters of RVX for humans and animals are available in the text A Book of Instructions and Technical Documentation on the Problem of Chemical Weapon Destruction (Anon, 2001), and are given in Table 7.6. 

Uses. Chemical warfare agent (CN) principal constituent in riot control agent Mace in tear gas formulations for personal protection devices... 

As a CWA (Chemical Warfare Agent), CS can be dispersed in burning bursting grenades, by hand-held dispersers (modified flame thrower), helicopter-mounted dispersers, and skid mounted dispersers. Its chief use is for riot mob control however, military applications are indicated (Ref 5)... 

Toxic hazards never seem as acute as other hazards in the ordnance industries, and the prevailing habits of cleanliness and orderliness go a long way toward their amelioration. The current emphasis on the maintenance of environmental standards have placed additional requirements on the control of effluent gas and liq process streams. The care now being exercised is evidenced by new analytical techniques for the detection of trace contaminants such as the presence of TNT and other aromatic nitrates in the soli and in the ground w (Ref 43), New techniques of detoxification have been developed using microwave plasma oxidation of aromatic compds, heavy metal compns and chemical warfare agents (Refs 65 81)... 

As with chemical weapons ingredients, the chemical equipment needed to make chemical warfare agents is commercially available just about anywhere. Certainly, to set up a full-scale poison gas production line, terrorists would need reactors and agitators, chemical storage tanks, containers, receivers, condensers for temperature control, distillation columns to separate chemical compounds, valves and pumps to move chemicals between reactors and other containers. Additionally, ideally the equipment would be corrosion-resistant. For a full-scale mustard gas production plant the price tag would be between 2.5 and 5 million. Approximately 10 million would be required to set up a plant to manufacture tabun, sarin or soman.47 Terrorists, however, can be assumed to forego the scale and the safety precautions that most governments would consider essential for a weapons programme. In fact, standard process equipment or a laboratory set-up of beakers and... 

The CWC s other declaration requirements pertained to the numerous chemicals used in ordinary commercial products - fertilisers, pesticides, flame retardants and pharmaceuticals - that also could be diverted to manufacturing poison gas.11 Chemicals that industry used widely for commercial products were listed in Schedule 3,12 and the chemical industry was required to declare its activities with controlled chemicals above certain threshold quantities. However, the CWC was not restricted to compounds that were explicitly listed in the schedules. The discovery of a new potential chemical warfare agent would not, therefore, undermine the CWC because such an agent would be automatically banned if it had no justifiable non-military purpose. 

J.F.K. Huber, E. Kenndler, G. Reich, W. Hack and J. Wolf, Optimal selection of gas chromatographic columns for the analytical control of chemical warfare agents by application of information theory to retention data, Anal. Chem., 65, 2903-2906 (1993). 

Chemical warfare agents (CWA) are classified into several categories, for example, nerve agents and vesicants. Tear gases are forbidden as a method of warfare but still allowed for riot control purposes. The CWC fists chemicals in three Schedules, which have been constructed on the basis of the toxicity of the chemicals, their industrial use, and historical usage as warfare agents. Schedule 1 consists of families of toxic chemicals, which have been developed, produced, stockpiled, or used as chemical weapons, for example, sarin and mustard gas. These chemicals have little industrial use. Schedule 3, on the other hand, consists of 17 single chemicals with... 

Superwarfarin rodenticides are used to kill urban and agricultural rodent pests. They are readily available to the general public and pest controllers, are easy to obtain and conceal, so may pose a risk of being used as chemical warfare agents (EPA, 2003, 2005 WHO, 2003, 2008). 

Salem, H., Ballantyne, B., Katz, S. (2008a). Chemicals used for riot control and personal protection. In Chemical Warfare Agents Chemistry, Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Therapeutics, 2nd edition (J.A. Romano, Jr., B.J. Lukey, H. Salem, eds), pp. 343-88. CRC Press/Taylor Francis Group, LLC, Boca Raton. 

The organophosphosphates represent another extremely important class of organic insecticides. They were developed during World War II as chemical warfare agents. Early examples included the powerful insecticide schradan, a systemic insecticide, and the contact insecticide parathion. Unfortunately, both of these compounds are highly poisonous to mammals and subsequent research in this field has been directed toward the development of more selective and less poisonous insecticides. In 1950, malathion, the first example of a wide-specUnm organophosphorus insecticide combined with very low mammalian toxicity, was developed. And at about the same time the phenoxyacetic acid herbicides were discovered. These systemic compounds ate extremely valuable for the selective control of broad-leaved weeds in cereal crops. These compounds have a relatively low toxicity to mammals and are therefore relatively safe to use. 

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