Volume 90, Issue 10

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), The National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine of the USA, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, and the Brazilian Chemical Society held a workshop: “Innovative Technologies for Chemical Security”, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 3 to 5 July 2017. This event was part of a four workshop series held to inform the report of the OPCW Scientific Advisory Board on developments in science and technology to the Fourth Review Conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which will be held in November 2018. The workshop explored the potential of new technologies to enhance capabilities for the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. There is a continuing need for recognition that emerging scientific developments can have beneficial applications with respect to implementation of the Convention, particularly in prevention of re-emergence of chemical weapons. The objectives of this workshop were to present, discuss and critically evaluate the emergence and practical applications of new and existing technologies – as tools for detecting biochemical change in complex environments – and the applications of these technologies in support of chemical disarmament and chemical security. This issue of Pure and Applied Chemistry presents a series of papers that originate from topics discussed in the workshop. This preface describes the scientific review process for the Chemical Weapons Convention and how it was supported by the Rio de Janeiro workshop, as well as introducing the papers in the collection and their corresponding authors.

The Chemical Weapons Convention is a science-based international treaty for the disarmament and non-proliferation of chemical weapons. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) serves as its implementing body. The treaty bans chemicals weapons, includes a verification mechanism to monitor compliance, and requires scientific and technical expertise for effective implementation. This necessitates a continuous engagement with scientific communities, whether informal or institutionalized (as demonstrated by the Designated Laboratories, Validation Group, and Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), of the OPCW), to ensure operation of the treaty keeps pace with scientific advances, and that enabling opportunities to meet challenges through scientific advances can be seized. The effective use of science for treaty implementation demands scientific literacy for decision making. Herein, the Convention, its scientific basis, need for scientific expertise, and mechanisms through which the OPCW engages scientists, are described. The function of the OPCW SAB, its review of science and technology to advise disarmament and non-proliferation policymakers, and its role in raising awareness of science within the world of international diplomacy, are reviewed.

Advances across the chemical and biological (life) sciences are increasingly enabled by ideas and tools from sectors outside these disciplines, with information and communication technologies playing a key role across 21 st century scientific development. In the face of rapid technological change, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the implementing body of the Chemical Weapons Convention (“the Convention”), seeks technological opportunities to strengthen capabilities in the field of chemical disarmament. The OPCW Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) in its review of developments in science and technology examined the potential uses of emerging technologies for the implementation of the Convention at a workshop entitled “Innovative Technologies for Chemical Security”, held from 3 to 5 July 2017, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The event, organized in cooperation with the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine of the United States of America, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, and the Brazilian Chemical Society, was attended by 45 scientists and engineers from 22 countries. Their insights into the use of innovative technological tools and how they might benefit chemical disarmament and non-proliferation informed the SAB’s report on developments in science and technology for the Fourth Review Conference of the Convention (to be held in November 2018), and are described herein, as are recommendations that the SAB submitted to the OPCW Director-General and the States Parties of the Convention. It is concluded that technologies exist or are under development that could be used for investigations, contingency, assistance and protection, reducing risks to inspectors, and enhancing sampling and analysis.

The term Incapacitating Chemical Agents (or Incapacitants) was chosen to describe different classes of chemical warfare agents that were being developed in the 1950s. This article considers some of the types of chemicals and their properties that have been discussed more recently under the terminology of Incapacitating Chemical Agents, including opioids of the fentanyl class, and how these psychochemicals are relevant to the Chemical Weapons Convention. This article argues that the term Incapacitating Chemical Agents is inaccurate and misleading and will be a potential cause of confusion when Member States of the Chemical Weapons Convention are discussing the types of toxic chemicals which are permitted for use for various law enforcement purposes including domestic riot control. This article then argues that the term Central Nervous System-acting chemicals is a more accurate and appropriate description of psychochemicals such as the fentanyls, and use of this term will hopefully facilitate a more constructive discussion within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). In other words, it is important to ‘get the science clearly understood first’, to enable a more constructive discussion by policy-makers, lawyers and military experts.

Stand-off detection of airborne chemical compounds has proven to be a useful method that is gaining popularity following technical progress. There are obvious advantages compared to in situ measurements when it comes to the security aspect and the ability to measure at locations otherwise hard to reach. However, an inherent limitation in many of the stand-off detection techniques lies in the fact that the measured signal from a chemical depends nonlinearly on the distance to the detector. Furthermore, the measured signal describes the summation of the responses from all chemicals spatially distributed in the line of sight of the instrument. In other words, the three dimensional extension of the chemical plume is converted into a two-dimensional image. Not only is important geometric information per se lost in this process, but the measured signal strength itself depends on the unknown plume distribution which implies that the interpretation of the observation data suffers from significant uncertainty. In this paper we investigate different and novel approaches to reconstruct the original three-dimensional distribution and concentration of the plume by implementation of atmospheric dispersion models and numerical retrieval methods. In particular our method does not require a priori assumptions on the three-dimensional distribution of the plume. We also strongly advocate the use of proper constraints to avoid unphysical solutions being derived (or post-process ‘adjustments’ to correct unphysical solutions). By applying such a reconstruction method, both improved and additional information is obtained from the original observation data, providing important intelligence to the analysts and decision makers.

Chemical security has been a hot topic over several years, especially involving organophosphates (OP), which are related to organophosphorus chemical warfare and pesticides. The main challenges are to develop efficient ways to destroy stockpiles of these materials and also to monitor their presence in the field or food. A promising approach in this sense is the targeted design of catalysts that can react with OP and degrade them. Herein, we present a summary of some recent advances towards OP detoxification and monitoring that involves four different approaches: (i) How? Understanding the mechanism: thorough mechanistic elucidation and design of an ideal catalytic scaffold; (ii) Nanocatalysts and sensors: rational functionalization of carbon nanomaterials leading to nanocatalysts as powder and thin films. A surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensor for OP was also obtained combining the functionalized material with silver nanoparticles; (iii) Catalysts from waste: reuse of rice husk waste as well as waste derived from the cheap gum arabic for developing biocatalysts that have high added-value and are environmentally friendly; (iv) A simple sensor: a simple, cheap and compact homemade colorimeter that can be used as a colorimetric sensor for detecting quantitatively various compounds, including pesticides.

Examples of existing and emerging wearable sensors for chemical and biological threat agents are reviewed and essential enabling developments identified. Wearables are described as inward looking sensors (self-monitoring) and outward looking sensors (environmental sensors). The future potential for wearable sensors, expected capabilities, and key challenges are summarized.

The OPCW Member states cover 98% of the global population and landmass. Regrettably, unanticipated chemical warfare agent assaults are reported during the last decades. In addition to the frequent threat situation, the sampling of bio-medical samples from these areas is critical and mainly depends on investigation opportunities of victims. Non-contact sensor technologies are desirable to enable a fast and secure estimation of a situation. Plants react on pollution because of their direct interaction with gases and it is assumed that chemical warfare agents influence plants, respectively. This impact can be analyzed for the detection and characterization of chemical warfare assaults. Nowadays technological progress in digital technologies provides new innovations in detectors, data analysis approaches and software availability which could improve the screening, monitoring and analysis of chemical warfare. Within this context hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is a promising method. Different applications from remote to close range sensing in medicine, food production, military, geography and agriculture do exist already. During the last years HSI showed high potential to determine and assess different plant parameters, e.g. abiotic and biotic stresses by recording the spectral reflectance of plants. Within the present manuscript, the basics principle of HSI as an innovative technique, aspects of recording and analyzing HSI data is presented using wild growing apple leaves which are treated with sulfuric acid, fire or heat. Resulting spectral signatures showed significant changes among the treatments. Especially the shortwave infrared was sensitive to changes due to the different treatments. Furthermore, the calculation of common spectral indices revealed differences due to the treatments which are not visible to the human eye. The results support HSI applications for the detection of chemical warfare agents and elucidate the impact of chemical warfare on plants.

Collecting water samples in remote or dangerous places can help identify chemical spills, discover clandestine weapons production, or determine if there has been natural or human-caused biological contamination of waterways. These collections can be expensive or put humans at risk due to the nature of the locale or the detection target. Such sample collection challenges are similar to those faced in oceanography, where accessibility and the physical realities of remoteness, corrosiveness, and pressure, place severe requirements on instrumentation, especially for unattended operations over long periods of time. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) has been at the forefront of developments that push forward sample collection and processing capabilities in the ocean. Specifically, the development of the environmental sample processor (ESP), a microbiology laboratory-in-a-can, has allowed extended presence with high frequency sampling. When deployed, the ESP filters water to collect particles, then either preserves those particles, or creates a homogenate for molecular analysis. Originally designed for detecting harmful algae blooms and the toxins they produce, the ESP now has expanded analytical capabilities. A newer version of the ESP is now being tested on an autonomous underwater vehicle, providing never-before-seen mobility and unprecedented access to the top 300 m of the ocean.

Lakes, rivers, estuaries and ocean waters control many important natural functions at the regional-global level. Hence, integrative and frequent long-term water monitoring is required globally. This paper describes the main features and innovations of a low-cost monitoring buoys network (MBN) deployed in a temperate region of Argentina. The MBN was designed to record extended time series at high-frequency, which is of great value for the scientific community, as well as for decision-makers. In addition, two innovative designs belonging to two versions of moored buoys (i.e. shallow waters and coastal marine waters) were presented. It was shown that the cost of either of two versions of the buoy is low, which can be considered as the main advantage.

The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is an international disarmament treaty that prohibits the development, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. This treaty has 193 States Parties (nations for which the treaty is binding) and entered into force in 1997. The CWC contains schedules of chemicals that have been associated with chemical warfare programmes. These scheduled chemicals must be declared by the States that possess them and are subject to verification by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW, the implementing body of the CWC). Isotopically labelled and stereoisomeric variants of the scheduled chemicals have presented ambiguities for interpretation of the requirements of treaty implementation, and advice was sought from the OPCW’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) in 2016. The SAB recommended that isotopically labelled compounds or stereoisomers related to the parent compound specified in a schedule should be interpreted as belonging to the same schedule. This advice should benefit scientists and diplomats from the CWC’s State Parties to help ensure a consistent approach to their declarations of scheduled chemicals (which in turn supports both the correctness and completeness of declarations under the CWC). Herein, isotopically labelled and stereoisomeric variants of CWC-scheduled chemicals are reviewed, and the impact of the SAB advice in influencing a change to national licensing in one of the State Parties is discussed. This outcome, an update to national licensing governing compliance to an international treaty, serves as an example of the effectiveness of science diplomacy within an international disarmament treaty.