Color-Based PolyOxoMetalate Cellulosic Detector Strips for Chemical Warfare Agents

Polyoxometalate (POM) and/or coinage-metal complexes that exhibit dramatic color changes on reaction with chemical warfare agents (CWAs) will be incorporated into cellulose matrices (paper and cotton) by robust electrostatic and covalent bonds to preparelightweight, easy-to-use, color-indicating CWA-detecting tear strips. These strips are expected to show very high sensitivity to CWAs, and thus be free of false negatives, unlike the existing M8 and M9 papers in current use for CWA detection.Simultaneously, the proposed strips are expected to be far less sensitive to operational theater interferents including water and nonpolar fluids (gasoline, jet fuel and other hydrocarbons, ethylene glycol, sunscreen, oils, etc.) and thus not besusceptible to false positives like the M8 or M9 papers. Specific reaction chemistries and experimental details are presented for detection of HD, VX, GB, GD and cyanide. The reduction potentials and reduction-induced color changes in the detector (reporter) POM and coinage-metal complexes will be investigated as a function of the elemental compositions, ligands, structures and counterions of the reporter complexes. The rates of color production (CWA simulant oxidation - reporter complexreduction) will also be established and optimized as a function of the same compositional and structural parameters. Color-change response times of the order of 5-15 seconds or less are anticipated. The effective processes for immobilization of thereporter molecules on the cellulosics identified in preliminary work will be studied as a function of several parameters and optimized. Government applications include military use; federal agencies responsible for domestic preparedness - HomelandSecurity, FEMA, FAA, DoE and Dept of Agriculture, and Health and Human Services; and state and local government agencies. Commercial applications include hospitals and relief agencies such as Red Cross. An efficient kit design would enable the unit to beemployed by any emergency first responder including fire, Haz-Mat, and police units.