High surface-area, mesoporous oxide adsorbent sampling system.

The overall goal of this Phase I project is to demonstrate the feasibility of an infrared transparent, micro-fluidic sampling system that will lead to a field-deployable detection system capable of detecting low ppb levels of chemical warfare (CW) agents in water. To accomplish this goal, the proposed detection system will combine high surface area, organically modified mesoporous oxide absorptive materials that are coated within a micro-fluidic sampling system for CW agent collection and concentration. Detection and identification of the concentrated CW agent will be accomplished by direct analysis of the micro-fluidic device via Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The main advantages of this approach are that it can operate in heterogeneous aqueous environments and will provide fast detection (< 10 min) and high sensitivity/selectivity to nonvolatile CW agents with minimal false alarms.