Automated System for Testing of Catalytic Decontaminants

Current decontamination systems for chemical warfare (CW) agents require large volumes of liquid, are bulky and corrosive, and a catalytic decontaminant capable of decontaminating large amounts of agents with a small amount of catalyst would be highly desirable. The U.S. Government has sponsored several research and development projects that may have resulted in catalysts that would successfully detoxify one or more CW agents. In many cases, due to the expense of developing and conducting meaningful tests with live CW agents, potential catalysts have only been tested against simulants or chemical analogs to the actual agents. Since catalysts that are active against simulants or analogs often perform differently against live agents (and sometimes don't work at all) it is difficult to be sure which catalysts work, let alone which work best. Therefore, TDA Research, Inc. (TDA), in collaboration with Calspan/University of Buffalo Research Center (CUBRC), proposes to develop an automated system for testing catalytic decontaminants against live CW agents. Such a system will dramatically reduce the per-test cost of live agent testing, allowing future catalysts to be inexpensively and uniformly tested for their ability to detoxify chemical warfare agents.