A growing demand for low-cost gas sensors capable of
detecting
the smallest amounts of highly toxic substances in air, including
chemical warfare agents (CWAs) and toxic industrial chemicals (TICs),
has emerged in recent years. Ion mobility spectrometers (IMS) are
particularly suitable for this application due to their high sensitivity
and fast response times. In view of the preferred mobile use of such
devices, miniaturized ion drift tubes are required as the core of
IMS-based lightweight, low-cost, hand-held gas detectors. Thus, we
evaluate the suitability of a miniaturized ion mobility spectrometer
featuring an ion drift tube length of just 40 mm and a high resolving
power of R
p = 60 for the detection of
various CWAs, such as nerve agents sarin (GB), tabun (GA), soman (GD),
and cyclosarin (GF), as well as the blister agent sulfur mustard (HD),
the blood agent hydrogen cyanide (AC) and the choking agent chlorine
(CL). We report on the limits of detection reaching minimum concentration
levels of, for instance, 29 pptv for sarin (GB) within
an averaging time of only 1 s. Furthermore, we investigate the effects
of precursors, simulants, and other common interfering substances
on false positive alarms.
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