Sarin destruction

The deadly terrorist bombings of July 7, 2005 in London again demonstrated that even sophisticated terrorists capable of planning and executing multiple, coordinated attacks continue to rely on traditional weapons rather than risk the technical and political uncertainty of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) weapons. While terrorists have the motivations and capabilities to conduct large (and small) attacks worldwide, we have not yet witnessed the use of so called weapons of mass destruction (WMD) foreshadowed by the 1995 Sarin attacks in... 

The specter of chemical death persists. Like atom bombs, chemical weapons have been classified as weapons of mass destruction. But were they, and are they Nerve agents such as VX and sarin can certainly kill swiftly. But so can hundreds of familiar drugs and poisons. The real question is whether anyone within the limits of current technology can, in fact, use them effectively as lethal weapons on the battlefield. 

The foundation of the CWC s inspection activities was based around the declaration by member states of their chemical weapons capabilities and activities. Nations with chemical warfare programmes were required to declare their production, storage and destruction facilities, which would then receive top monitoring priority. Nevertheless, the CWC did allow states to maintain research programmes to ensure the integrity of defensive equipment such as gas masks and gas detectors, but these activities were also to be closely monitored since they involved work with the chemical agents listed on Schedule l.9 Otherwise, all other warfare agents, mustard gas, Lewisite, soman, sarin, tabun, VX and the capability to produce them were to be eliminated under the watchful eyes of international inspectors (Table 8.1).10 The convention thus defined chemical weapons as any toxic chemical, or its precursors, intended for purposes other than those not prohibited under this convention for... 

A number of locations and orientations of Sarin on the regular nanosurface and on the small fragment of MgO were found. In this study it was revealed that Sarin is physisorbed (the nanosurface and hydroxylated small fragment this is undestructive adsorption) or chemisorbed (destructive adsorption) on MgO (see Figure 16-1). The physisorption of GB on the surface of MgO occurs due to the formation of hydrogen bonds and ion-dipole and dipole-dipole interactions between adsorbed GB and the surface. The chemisorption occurs due to the formation of covalent bonds between the molecule and the surface. The adsorption results in the polarization and the electron density redistribution of GB. The adsorption energy obtained at the MP2/6-31G(d) level of theory for the most stable chemisorbed system is... 

More recently, microemulsions have been developed for the oxidative/hydrolytic destruction of sulfanes sulfoxides) and phosphoric acid derivatives using sodium hypochlorite and cetyl-trimethylammonium chloride (CTAC). The compounds studied serve as model compounds for chemical warfare agents such as mustard gas [bis(2-chloroethyl)sulfane] and sarin (GB i-propyl-methylphosphonofluoridate). Big stocks of these must now be destroyed after implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which came into force in April 1997 [865],... 

Another possible application, probably in the near future, is that A-esterases may find a role in the destruction of large amounts of nerve agents and OP insecticides, and the degradation products formed are generally nontoxic. Eventual mutations on A-esterases can contribute to increased specificity towards substrates of special importance such as warfare nerve agents soman, sarin, and tabun. 

No acute signs or symptoms were exhibited following the destruction of chemical munitions at Khamisiyah, Iraq in 1991, although it was theoretically possible that almost 100 000 US troops could have been exposed to extremely low concentrations of sarin or cyclosarin (e.g. Winken-werder, 2002 IoM, 2000). The large number of retrospective studies concerning this incident has been extensively reviewed (IoM, 2004). 

The Matsumoto and Tokyo subway sarin attacks were wake-up calls to NBC terrorism. These incidents proved that terrorists could actually deploy chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction. We have previously analyzed and reported on the Tokyo subway sarin attack from the viewpoint of clinical medicine (Okumura el al., 1996,1998a, 1999). Here, by including the findings of the court trials and information related to the attacks that has become available, we review the experiences and lessons learned from the Tokyo subway sarin attack in the hope that doing so will improve measures against chemical terrorism. 

In the USA, but not in the UK, much attention was given to the possibility that troops had been exposed to low levels of the nerve agents sarin and cyclosarin following the probable accidental destruction of an Iraqi arms dump atKhamisiyah. There was no contemporary evidence of chemical weapon detection or clinical evidence of exposure, and since then little evidence has been found that those possibly exposed to the plume thought to have resulted from the incident had any difference in post-war illness (Gray et al.,... 

Flamm and Pakhomov also describe the destruction of GB (sarin) and GD (soman) (Bechtel, 1996). The GB or GD is dissolved in industrial-grade ethanolamine containing about 20 percent water. The mixture is heated to 110°C for 1 hour at atmospheric pressure (Figure 5-3). The reaction thus breaks the P-F bond, which is what causes the high toxicity of the G compounds. The products from this reaction are added to calcium hydroxide and bitumen, then heated to about 200°C under reduced pressure for 1 hour. This treatment is expected to remove any last traces of GB and GD. Alcohols produced in the reactions and excess ethanolamine are distilled from the bitumenization mixture. The bitumen-salt mixture is drained from the reactor and allowed to solidify. About 5-7 kg of bitumen-salt product is produced for each kilogram of GB or GD destroyed. About 1 kg of distillate is... 

Prior to plans for the destruction of the CW stockpiles of most countries, and preceding the sarin attacks in Matsumoto and Tokyo, the development and implementation of defensive measures against CW agents was primarily centered on the mihtary use... 

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