DETECTION OF SARIN AND SOMAN IN A COMPLEX AIRBORNE MATRIX BY CAPILLARY COLUMN AMMONIA CHEMICAL IONIZATION GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY MASS-SPECTROMETRY AND GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY TANDEM MASS-SPECTROMETRY

The chemical warfare agents, sarin and soman, were detected and confirmed during full scanning capillary column ammonia chemical ionization mass spectrometry at nanogram levels in spiked extracts of a diesel exhaust environment sampled onto the charcoal of a Canadian C2 respirator canister. The selectivity of ammonia chemical ionization enabled the use of selected ion monitoring and resulted in detection limits of 40 pg and just above 500 pg for sarin and soman respectively in this extract. This diesel exhaust environment, typical of what might be encountered under battlefield conditions, was used to evaluate capillary column ammonia chemical ionization tandem mass spectrometry as a possible verification technology. Chemical interferences were reduced and significantly better detection limits, 15 pg and 80 pg for sarin and soman respectively, were obtained during gas chromatographic-tandem mass spectrometric analysis of these agents in the presence of numerous interfering diesel exhaust and charcoal bed components.