Technical report | Application of Quantitative Phosphorous Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy to Chemical Warfare Agents

Abstract 

This report outlines the development of an inverse-gated phosphorous nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy method for determining the purity of chemical warfare agents using reference standards contained within a glass stem coaxial insert. The stem coaxial insert prevents any possible reaction of the reference standard and analyte by segregating the two solutions. The method was determined to be accurate to 1.1% and was employed to determine the purity of the V-series nerve agent VX using proton-decoupled pulse parameters. The method was found to be equal to or better than modern chromatographic techniques in terms of precision, accuracy and analysis time. The operational simplicity of this method enables both quantitative and qualitative information to be rapidly gleaned from a single sample.

Executive Summary

Phosphorous quantitative Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a non-destructive technique that can be used for quantitation of chemical species with absolute errors generally below 2%. This report outlines the development of a quantitative phosphorous NMR spectroscopy method for determining the purity of CWAs using reference standards contained within a glass stem coaxial insert. The stem coaxial insert prevents any possible reaction of the reference standard and analyte by segregating the two solutions. The method was determined to be accurate to 1.1% and was subsequently employed to determine the purity of the V-series nerve agent VX using proton-decoupled pulse parameters. The method was found to be equal to or better than modern chromatographic techniques in terms of precision, accuracy and analysis turnaround time. The operational simplicity of this method enables both quantitative and qualitative information to be rapidly gleaned from a single sample.