National Security and Homeland Defense Challenges for the Chemical Sciences in the 21st Century (2002) / Chapter Skim
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4. Research Directions
4. Research Directions
Pages 26-41
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From page 26... ...
From increased energy independence to chemical transportation safety, from new methods of detection to intrinsically secure chemistry in production and processing, much of the research required for improvements in threat reduction technologies is similar to research needed for the other grand challenges. Synthesis of new molecules, synthesis of new materials, new synthetic methods, and new methods of sample collection and preparation could ultimately yield more highly selective sensors; more robust detectors; lighter, more portable detectors; more efficient energy conversion or storage; and manufacturing that is cleaner and safer.
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From page 27... ...
Drug manufacturing and drug delivery systems need to be effective so that user safety is ensured in terms of therapeutic dosage applied and dosage effectiveness. Therefore, process control for each of the unit operations as well as quality control involved in the scale-up of the drug manufacturing process is of great importance for a reliable manufacturing process.
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From page 28... ...
Of course, the pharmaceutical industry is not the only sector in which process engineering is needed to enhance national security and homeland defense. Also, other areas of process engineering such as model development, optimization schemes, on-line control, catalyst development, new separation methods, biomass conversion, and models using multiple length scales are equally important to include in research efforts.
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From page 29... ...
Personal protective materials could be enhanced with new chemical absorbents; filter materials, impermeable membranes, artificial sutures, and improved energetic materials for
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From page 30... ...
Infrastructure The need for a central laboratory or test facility to validate new detection, detoxification, remediation, and medical countermeasure technologies was
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From page 31... ...
These same tools can be used to predict the effect of release of a chemical agent in an urban area so that appropriate emergency response plans can be developed. Generally considered the "gold standard" in rapidly identifying small molecules such as chemical warfare agents, mass spectrometric techniques have been developed by analytical chemists that allow the identification of larger biomolecules.
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From page 32... ...
has been addressing the problem of sample collection and concentration for some time, although the need for real-time collection and analysis, though important in the national security and homeland defense arena, has not been particularly urgent. The medical diagnostics community has been actively engaged in developing methodologies for rapidly collecting, processing, and identifying disease in samples from patients, and recent efforts have focused on mechanical devices that can be used to provide a more active means of sample concentration and presentation to a sensor.
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From page 33... ...
The challenge in this area is to develop specific, sensitive, low-power, fast, and robust portable devices that will detect radiological, chemical, biological, or explosive threats in the environment and that will rapidly diagnose disease. Chemical Detectors Mass spectrometry and ion mobility spectrometry are well-established analytical techniques that are heavily used by the DOD.
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From page 34... ...
Although mass spectrometers are not considered to be spectroscopic devices, small mass spectrometers are offered as an example of the concept of miniaturization in the Appendix. 1 A cross-reactive array, or "electronic nose," behaves like the mammalian olfactory system: the response from an array of hundreds or thousands of individual sensor elements is combined to form a response pattern characteristic of the analyte of interest.2 Various implementations of this basic concept have been developed, using solvatochromic dyes or electronic polymers as detection elements, for example.3-5 Work in this field has established how multiple redundant sensor elements can be used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of such an experiment, making analyte identification easier and clearer, and similar highly parallel assays have been applied industrially for the identification of proteins and sequencing the human genome.67 Although the usual implementation of an "electronic nose" targets chemicals in the gas phase, this technique is equally applicable to detection of species in water or from blood or urine samples.
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From page 35... ...
In addition, it is very difficult to distinguish toxic biological agents from the harmless biological compounds ubiquitous in our environment or from naturally occurring toxic biological agents that are present. As with chemical agent detection, significant challenges in this field involve improving sensitivity, specificity, and power requirements of devices.
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From page 36... ...
One of the first steps involves constant surveillance of transportation in high-security areas such as airports and national borders. This can be achieved by using noninvasive sensors alone or in conjunction with imaging techniques capable of detecting and identifying sealed containers with chemicals or explosive materials inside, or items such as knives or guns on the body.
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From page 37... ...
For contamination of the water supply, the distribution system is the most likely candidate for an attack. An effective contaminant will be tasteless, odorless, and colorless, otherwise consumers will recognize the problem themselves without additional detection technology.8 New detection technologies are needed for the in situ monitoring of biological warfare agents inside "suicide attackers" to curb the spread of contagious diseases, including smallpox.
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From page 38... ...
A biological aerosol sentry system developed to analyze data from numerous sensors can be used to detect the release of biological agents at public gathering arenas and closed spaces such as subways. Systems monitoring water, fuel, and food supplies would be necessary to prevent mass human exposure to chemical and biological agents.
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From page 39... ...
In addition, extensive information about and knowledge of chemical and biological agents is maintained at the Chemical and Biological Information Analysis Center (CBIAC) at Aberdeen Proving 9 |
From page 40... ...
Information on common chemical agents and biological agents and their respective decontamination equipment is available in the Guide for the Selection of Chemical and Biological Decontamination Equipment for Emergency First Responders, published by the National Institute of Justice. The challenges in decontamination include the logistics of providing materials in a timely manner, the development of effective multifunctional decontamination agents that are able to neutralize a variety of chemical or biological contaminants of diverse properties, and the development of low-toxicity decontamination agents that can be applied to such sensitive surfaces as human skin.
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From page 41... ...
RESEARCH DIRECTIONS 41 "clean" would speed the development of disinfectants and their testing. Also, a method for transferring information from classified programs to civilian programs regarding methods for decontamination, results from decontamination tests, and how to best test a decontaminant would be useful.
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