Identification of organophosphate nerve agents by the DMS detector

Abstract

Ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) is an appropriate technique to detect and identify chemical warfare agents (CWAs), in particular nerve agents. In many cases, the challenge is to correctly distinguish between nerve agents such as sarin, soman, tabun and VX. This paper presents the identification of CWAs by PRS-1W, a detector that uses IMS combined with differential mobility spectrometry (DMS).