SAMPLING INLET FOR FIRE/EXPLOSION SAFETY OF CWC TREATY VERIFICATION INSTRUMENTS

One of the Operation Directorate's top ten challenges is the development of handheld gas chromatography (GC) instrumentation for CW treaty verification. Toward this challenge, DNA has recently developed and reduced to practice innovative new technologies for low power, fast GC. An unsolved technical issue which still remains with small, portable GC devices is how to conduct fast and automated vapor sampling without exposing the normally hot surfaces of GC inlets directly to the environment. Such hot surfaces prevent the unwanted condensation losses of semivolatile CW-related vapors within the sample inlet, but constitute a fire and explosion hazard for operation of the equipment in industrial sites. This safety concern could ultimately prevent the use of this instrumentation in its application, the inspection of industrial chemical sites for offending chemicals. A novel approach to an automated safe inlet/vapor preconcentrator is proposed which eliminates the exposure of hot surfaces to the environment, yet provides automated fast sampling. Further, the proposed design can simplify small GC instruments, significantly increase GC sensitivity (reduce detection limits), greatly enhance preconcentrator performance, increase GC reliability, and simplify preconcentrator maintenance. This safe inlet concept would also have utility beyond small GCs. A feasibility demonstration is proposed.