Identification of chemicals relevant to the Chemical Weapons Convention using the novel sample-preparation methods and strategies of the Mobile Laboratory of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

• We discuss field analysis of chemical warfare agents and related compounds.
• Novel sample-preparation methods.
• Thermal desorption for gas chromatography full-scan mass spectrometry analysis.
• Sample-preparation methods are optimized for minimal logistics and high throughput.
• Examples of identifying chemicals using novel sample-preparation methods.

The standard approach to on-site sample preparation for gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of chemicals relevant to the Chemical Weapons Convention provides relatively good coverage of the target analytes, but it suffers from a number of drawbacks, such as low sample throughput, use of bulky equipment, extensive manual work, extensive use of organic solvents, problems in preparing multiphase-sample systems and relatively large amounts of hazardous waste generated. We present the analytical strategies and the novel sample-preparation methods developed for the Mobile Laboratory of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) that deal efficiently with these issues. We illustrate the effectiveness of the approach with several practical examples.