Centre Defence Enterprise
for
Detection of airborne chemical hazards CDE Innovation Network 22 July 2014
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23 July 2014
Contents
• Introduction • Chemical hazards • Military context • In-service equipment • Requirements for CDE competition
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23 July 2014
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys - An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... Dim, through the mist panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. Wilfred Owen (1893 – 1918)
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WW I German soldiers advancing through a gas cloud
Introduction
Chemical hazards
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• Chemical warfare agents (CWA) • Incapacitants and riot control agents • Toxic industrial chemicals (TICs)
• Gross physiological effect on man
– lethal, casualty producing, incapacitating
• Specific physiological effect – symptoms (blisters, breathing, hallucination)
• Physiochemical properties – persistent, non-persistent
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Class Example Symptoms
CWA - Nerve (organophosphate)
Sarin (GB) VX
Lethal: miosis, salivation, convulsions, asphyxiation
CWA - Choking Chlorine, phosgene Lethal: lung damage, irritation to eyes and respiratory tract
CWA - Blood Hydrogen cyanide, cyanogen chloride
Lethal: respiratory, circulatory and heart failure
CWA - Blister agent Sulphur mustard, lewisite
Damaging: skin blisters, eye damage, damage to respiratory tract
Incapacitants Fentanyl, BZ Dose dependent: disorientation, hallucination, unconsciousness, death
Riot control CS Temporary effect: sensory irritation, disabling physical effects
Toxic industrial chemicals
Chlorine, ammonia Lethal: coughing, irritation to eyes, nose and respiratory tract
Chemical structures
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P R
X O
O
Organophosphate ester
Nerve
Cl C
Cl
O Phosgene
Cl Cl Chlorine
Choking
Cyanogen chloride N C Cl
N C H Hydrogen cyanide
Blood
Cl S Cl Sulphur mustard
Cl As Cl
Cl
Lewisite
Blister
Physical properties
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Chemical Boiling Point (⁰C) Volatility (25⁰C) (mg per m3)
State (25⁰C)
Phosgene
8 >1,000,000 Gas, non-persistent
Water
100 ~150,000 Liquid
GB (sarin)
158 22,000 Liquid
Sulphur mustard
217 910 Liquid, intermediate
Nitrogen mustard 257 110 Liquid
VX
~300 9 Liquid, persistent
Fentanyl n/a n/a Solids
Physical properties
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Deposited hazard
Vapour Aerosol
Airborne hazard
Liquid/solid
Dissemination
Meteorological conditions
Physical properties
Respiratory, eyes
Skin
Respiratory, eyes, skin
The military context
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Everything we do is to support that young soldier on point
Threat
• National Security Strategy – Tier 1 – terrorist organisations – Tier 2 – nation states
• Not Cold War but targeted effects
– disrupt tempo and morale – persistent agents deny ground and equipment
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Who is today’s user? • Most personnel are Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear (CBRN) generalists
– Royal Navy – British Army – Royal Air Force
• CBRN specialists – Recce and exploitation teams
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What does the user want from detectors? • Survive so timely warning • Operate so accurate information to inform the
commander about what to do next: – what is it?
• generalist = persistency, agent classification • specialist = identification, classification,
quantification – where is it?
• recce and survey - aim is to avoid • hazard management/verify successful
decontamination
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Military factors • Intuitive and easy to handle in IPE • Easily understood alarms • Clear info outputs for CBRN reports • Interconnected • Low false-alarm rate • Size and weight • Low logistic and training burden • High availability
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Is it easy to use by a tired soldier, wearing IPE, in the middle of nowhere, at 3am?
In-service equipment
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Detection concepts
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Standoff airborne/deposited
Vapour/aerosol
Point airborne
Liquid/solid
Sample
In-service capability
• Different sensors for different roles – size – person worn, man portable, platform mounted – selectivity – classification vs identification
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Physical properties used for detection • Mobility of ion in an electric field
– property used in ion mobility spectrometry – difference in time taken for ions to differentially migrate
down an electric field gradient to a collector
electric field
Faraday plate
drift gas in
drift gas out
sample in
ionisation source
Drift
A
B
Abu
ndan
ce
Time A B
+ +
+ +
+ +
+
+ +
+
+ + +
+ + +
+
+ +
+
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Physical properties used for detection • Mobility of ion in an electric field
• Mass to charge of ion – property used by mass spectrometry
m/z
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Physical properties used for detection • Mobility of ion in an electric field
• Mass to charge of ion
– property used by mass spectrometry • Dye solvation
– property used in detector paper
Physical properties used for detection
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• Spectral emission – property used in flame photometric devices, laser-induced
breakdown spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy
E1
E2
hυ
Physical properties used for detection
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• Spectral emission • Chemical reaction
– colorimetric response
Residual vapour detector
Physical properties used for detection
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• Spectral emission • Chemical reaction
• Molecular recognition
Physical properties used for detection
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• Spectral emission • Chemical reaction
• Molecular recognition
• Optical spectroscopy – Infrared (passive or active), Raman
4000cm-1 3000cm-1 2000cm-1 1000cm-1
X-H attached to hetroatoms
C-H C≡C C ≡N
Single bonds
Double bonds
• Any others?
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Physical properties used for detection
Requirements for this CDE competition
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• Innovative approaches to detect toxic chemicals in vapour and/or aerosol form
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Technical requirement
Vapour Aerosol
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High sensitivity
High selectivity
High sensitivity
Range of materials
How sensitive?
• Acute Exposure Guideline Levels (AEGL)* • Used for a rare, typically accidental, exposure
– based on acute exposure, not appropriate for frequent exposure
• Threshold exposure limits for a given exposure time • Categorised by degree of severity of toxic effects
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* http://www.epa.gov/oppt/aegl/index.htm
How sensitive?
• Must detect AEGL-3 (10 minutes): could experience life-threatening health effects or death (example – HCN 27 ppm)
• Preferably detect AEGL-1 (10 minutes): could cause notable discomfort, effects not disabling, are transient and reversible on cessation of exposure (example – HCN 2.5 ppm)
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How selective?
• Is a toxic material present or not? • What class of agent? • What is its molecular composition, ie can it be
identified? • How many materials are likely to produce a
false alarm?
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Aerosol requirements
• Aim for size range of 0.1 to 10 µm diameter • Discriminate chemical hazards from background
– generic information such as size and shape alone is insufficient
– need classification/identification
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Proposals on core technologies
• Proof-of-concept research proposals invited – potential for improving detection and
identification of airborne chemical hazards (point or standoff)
– novel ideas that could become the core technologies in future sensors
• Low technology readiness level (TRL 2-3)
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Future applications
• Proposal must address feasibility to meet these aspirations in the future: – fast response – small size – low weight – low consumable burden – wide dynamic range – low false alarm rates
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Phase-1 funding • Projects will be 4 to 6 months in duration • £500,000 total funding available • Likely to fund higher number of lower-value proposals
£30,000 to £80,000 • Include payment schedule in proposal
– must include at least 1 interim or the final payment before end of March 2015
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Phase-2 exploitation routes
• Potential for successful projects to receive follow-on funding (up to a total of £500,000) from MOD – develop the concept to a higher TRL
• Stakeholder day will be held – each project team will be invited to present outcomes
and review exploitation routes
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Project assessments
• Proposals will be evaluated by a team of assessors covering a range of specialisms – US Department of Defence secondee (under non-disclosure
agreement) – unless a request is made in the proposal for the review to be
carried out only by UK MOD (indicate in innovation description)
• Project must provide a practical demonstration of the concept/technique
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What next?
• 29 July – webinar • 11 September – competition closes (5pm)
– submit proposals through CDE portal
• 15 October – decision conference – contracting complete a few weeks later
• CDE portal questions: [email protected] • Technical questions: [email protected]
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23 July 2014