The US Army has a need to develop topical protectants that can decrease the effects of cutaneous exposure to chemical warfare (CW) agents. Such materials would enhance a soldier's ability to carry out the mission in a chemically hostile environment, would lessen the burden on medical personnel, and may allow the casualties to return to duty in a shorter period of time than might otherwise be possible. In a preliminary report (E. H. Braue, Jr. and M. G. Pannella, Applied Spectrosc., 44, 1061 (1990)), we described a unique analytical method using FT-IR spectroscopy and the horizontal attenuated total reflectance (ATR) accessory for evaluating the effectiveness of topical skin protectants (TSPs) against penetration by chemical agents. We now describe the application of this method to the chemical warfare agent sulfur mustard (HD).

Date Published: 1 March 1992
PDF: 2 pages
Proc. SPIE 1575, 8th Intl Conf on Fourier Transform Spectroscopy, (1 March 1992); doi: 10.1117/12.56437

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1575:
8th Intl Conf on Fourier Transform Spectroscopy
Herbert Michael Heise; Ernst Heiner Korte; Heinz W. Siesler, Editor(s)