According to a report by Phys.org, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Forensic Science Center have developed a new technique to detect pinacolyl alcohol, a unique chemical marker for the nerve agent Soman, in environmental samples. The paper was published in ACS Omega and received the journal's Editor's Choice Award, with its subject featured on the cover.
Lawrence Livermore's Forensic Science Center is one of only two laboratories in the United States certified to receive and analyze real-world samples collected by teams from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. To keep that certification, the lab must pass proficiency tests every year administered by the organization.
The work matters because nerve agents like Soman break down in the environment quickly, leaving only trace amounts of chemical markers behind. Finding those traces in a complex mix of other organic and inorganic chemicals is a persistent challenge, even with powerful instrumentation.
Pinacolyl alcohol is central to Soman in two ways. It is needed to synthesize the nerve agent and also appears as a byproduct when Soman degrades. Crucially, pinacolyl alcohol is not a naturally occurring chemical. It is synthetic. Finding it in an environmental sample from a suspected attack site strongly suggests the nerve agent was used there.
The problem until now was that pinacolyl alcohol is difficult to analyze. Its low molecular weight makes identification by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, or GC-MS, unreliable even at relatively high concentrations. And because the chemical lacks ionizable properties, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, known as LC-MS, generally cannot be used on it at all.
The LLNL team solved this by developing a method to convert pinacolyl alcohol into a different chemical species that can be detected effectively by both GC-MS and LC-MS. That dual-method detection capability did not previously exist.
"It is our duty as a lab not only to provide evidence, if any, for the use of a chemical weapon, but to provide all the analytical evidence to support our findings and in the process support OPCW's efforts in building a case against an alleged perpetrator," said Carlos Valdez, associate program leader for research and development at LLNL's Forensic Science Center.
The new technique gives investigators a more reliable tool when analyzing samples taken after a suspected chemical attack, where the ability to confirm a specific agent can be critical to international accountability efforts.
