There is a critical need by the U.S. Army to have at their disposal a highly functional, low-cost, chemical warfare detection instrument. An effective instrument must provide selectivity for chemical targets relative to background, fast response times, and a low incidence of false positives and virtually no false negatives. GAT will deliver a fieldable mass spectrometer that will serve as the centerpiece of a high performance chemical warfare detection system. The proposed instrument will use proprietary technology developed at Purdue University (patent pending) that centers on the miniaturization of a quadrupole ion trap (QIT) mass spectrometer. Mass Spectrometers provide quantitative and qualitative information in the same analytical scan. To date, high performance mass spectrometers have been confined to the pristine laboratory environment. However, the innovation realized at Purdue will allow for a high performance instrument that will be uniquely suited for field deployable point detection. Therefore, the laboratory can be brought to the sample instead of the current time consuming methods of taking the sample to the laboratory. The objectives of Phase 1 are to determine the feasibility of development and commercialization of a portable chemical warfare detection system, including, on-line sampling, mini-mass spectrometer detection, and networked data handling. The proposed instrument will provide many markets with affordable, reliable, functional chemical detection in a field portable package. This instrumentation represents a platform technology that can be used in many research and development applications. Therefore, the MMS will expand current mass spectrometry markets and most excitingly, open new markets. Specifically, this type of instrument could be used in process monitoring, environmental testing, for water and air purity, and may be used as a medical monitoring instrument.
