Analysis of the degradation products of chemical warfare agents using a portable capillary electrophoresis instrument with various sample injection devices

Abstract

In the present research, the performance of three sample injection devices in a portable capillary electrophoresis (CE) instrument was examined. These were the so-called cross-sampler, horizontal injection channel and vertical injection channel. All the three showed a good reproducibility of migration times (the relative standard deviation (RSD) was 4.3% in the case of the cross-sampler, 6.0% in the case of the horizontal injection channel and 1.7% in the case of the vertical channel). However, the reproducibility of peak areas was not sufficient. Hence, this study was mainly focused on qualitative analysis. The cross-sampler injection device was used in the portable CE instrument to analyse the composition of degradation products of chemical warfare agents (CWA). For the analysis of CWA degradation products simple procedures for the extraction of phosphonic acids from different surfaces, such as soil, concrete and granite blocks, tile floor, were developed.