The real thing

At last, researchers can work with real chem-bio agents

Although the new chem-bio agent testing facility is very functional in appearance, its hilltop location can provide a great view. Photo by Curtis Boles

There’s nothing like the “real thing.”

Until recently, ORNL researchers were forbidden to bring actual chemical and biological warfare (“chem-bio”) agents into the Laboratory in any form, no matter how dilute or weakened. This forced them either to work with simulants—compounds or organisms that are almost like the real thing—or go where the real chemicals are. All that changes with a new facility at ORNL.

“Being able to perform experiments on-site with the real agents, even at trace amounts, gives us a tremendous advantage,” says Wayne Griest, the Chemical and Analytical Sciences Division’s facility manager.

It’s good news for the Lab and for the U.S. Army, which, recognizing ORNL’s world-class expertise in mass spectrometry, has contracted with the Lab to develop a new series of portable chem-bio agent detectors for the battlefield. The instrument will essentially be a small yet super-sensitive ion-trap mass spectrometer with special sampling inlets. The military’s experience in Operation Desert Storm, with concern that chemical and biological warfare agents might have been present in the battle area in Kuwait, underscored the need for advanced detection equipment.

The oil fires and other contaminants in the war zone plagued detection equipment with false-positive readings. ORNL is working to develop sophisticated new instruments that can detect and distinguish among a wider variety of airborne chemicals and microorganisms as well as chemicals on the ground. The new instruments also need to be lightweight, fast, user-friendly, rugged and easy to maintain.

To develop and test those instruments, researchers need to have the chem-bio agents on hand. Previously, because the real chemicals or microorganisms weren’t available, researchers had to travel to military sites where the chemicals are stored.

Besides the inconvenience and expense of having to perform research on the road, there also was the risk of being at a place where “nerve gas” was stored in drums by the ton. In addition, Griest notes that even using simulated agents—chemicals that are close enough to the real thing to use in experiments—can pose more risks to the researcher than the very diluted amounts of real agents they’ll be working with in their modular, pre-fab lab, which is located atop a hill next to the Building 5507 environmental chamber facility on the X-10 Site’s southeast side.

“People refer to nerve ‘gas,’ although the actual agents are in liquid form in such tiny amounts that contact with skin wouldn’t be lethal,” Griest says. “We’ll also be working with botulinum toxins at trace levels. These instruments are so sensitive, trace amounts are plenty. There is little risk.”

The U.S. Army funded half of the facility. The other half came from the pooled effort of several ORNL divisions: CASD, Instrumentation and Controls, Life Sciences and Chemical Technology. Called the BSL-3/RDTE Facility, it’s designed to meet Army and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requirements for safely handling and storing those agents. The Engineering and Plant and Equipment Divisions, along with vendors, worked with CASD on the design. The facility has extensive air filtering and drain systems that capture or treat all emissions.

Further, there will be no hazardous waste. The chem-bio agent samples, which are dilute enough to ship commercially, will arrive at ORNL carefully packaged and paperworked according to all regulatory requirements.

Although the military is an eager customer for detection instruments of phenomenal sensitivity, growing concerns over urban terrorism, as illustrated by a gas attack on a Tokyo subway a few years ago, underline the critical need for a rapid detection and identification mass spectrometer for nonmilitary uses. Officials view the use of chemical and biological agents, both on the battlefield and in civilian settings, as a growing threat.

With their new research and testing facility, ORNL researchers now will have the luxury of working with the “real thing” in developing the urgently needed instruments to deal with those threats.—B.C.