The use of portable gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is an important capability that has been available commercially for almost 25 years. These systems have been used within a variety of different industries, including their extensive use by environmental scientists for the analysis of hazardous air pollutants. Recently, these systems were deployed to conventional military forces for use in theater to detect and identify toxic chemicals including chemical warfare agents (CWAs). The challenges of deploying such complex analytical instruments to these military users are unique. Among other things, these organizations have considerable and variable mission strains, complex and difficult logistics and coordination needs, and variability in user backgrounds. This review outlines the value portable GC-MS systems offer to these warfighters in theater, discusses some important aspects of the design of portable systems that makes their deployment to this type of end user possible, and proposes methods that can be used to overcome challenges to successful deployment of portable GC-MS to non-scientists working within hostile environments.
Portable gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) systems are being deployed for field use, and are designed with this goal in mind. Performance characteristics of instruments that are successful in the field are different from those of equivalent technologies that are successful in a laboratory setting. These field-portable systems are extending the capabilities of the field user, providing investigative leads and confirmatory identifications in real time. Many different types of users benefit from the availability of this technology including emergency responders, the military, and law-enforcement organizations. This manuscript describes performance characteristics that are important for field-portable instruments, especially field-portable GC-MS systems, and demonstrates the value of this equipment to the disciplines of explosives investigations, fire investigations, and counterfeit-drug detection. This paper describes the current state of portable GC-MS technology, including a review of the development of portable GC-MS, as well as a demonstration of the value of this capability using different examples.
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