Detection of chemical warfare agents in the presence of interferents

This work describes the use of an array of SAW (surface acoustic wave devices) to detect and identify chemical warfare agents (nerve and mustard simulants) in a background of interferents (methanol, diesel and hexane). Even in a varying concentration and realistic gas delivery profiles, an array of SAW is able to identify and predict the concentrations of simulants in real-time. This application differs from standard electronic noses (e-noses) as it is analytic. Using SAW that are highly sensitive to only the simulants with the appropriate classification algorithms a real-time chemical detector can be realized. The system was tested with a wide range of gas profiles and was able to identify and quantify the simulants accurately.