PH04 Advances in Analysis and Measurements
Exhibit Hall
8:00 AM - Thursday
(PH005) Adsorption study on chemical protective substrates using a novel protocol.
Ramkumar, S1, Sata, U1, 1 Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, USA
ABSTRACT- In the current times of threats and terror, highly efficient chemical protective suits and chemical decontamination wipes are necessary. Therefore, it is of extreme necessity to develop high precision analytical methods to quantify the protective capabilities of chemical protective substrates. The principal mechanism behind protection is adsorption. There are no precise analytical methods available heretofore to quantify the adsorption/protection characteristics of protective substrates. Results from a recent study on the adsorption of toxic industrial chemicals by nonwoven chemical protective substrates using a high precision Thermo-gravimetric analyzer (TGA) will be presented in this paper. To the authors′ best knowledge, the use of TGA for studying the adsorption of toxic chemicals is novel. A neoteric protocol has been devised to characterize the adsorption of toxic chemicals using a Thermo-gravimetric analyzer. A quantitative comparative study has been carried out to objectively quantify the protection characteristics of a novel protective composite(US Patent Pending). TGA, which is conventionally used for chemical composition analysis and oxidation behavior, was used in this study and was able to precisely measure the different adsorption/protection parameters such as: 1) Rate of adsorption; 2) Saturation time; 3) Adsorption capacity and 4) Percentage weight gain. Three different novel chemical protective substrates were evaluated for their protective capabilities and the results will be presented in the paper. The work reported in this paper is timely and contributes to our homeland security and national defense.
Key words: adsorption, thermogravimetry, chemical protective substrates, nonwoven