News Brief: CSI: Chemical weapons and illicit drugs
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Category: ResearchType: News
Source: PNNL
Date: Sunday, April 2nd, 2017
April 02, 2017 
RICHLAND, Wash. - Reports of incidents involving chemical warfare agents and other weaponized toxic chemicals continue to make headlines. Highly specialized analysis of residues can be a means of providing evidence to convict perpetrators of chemical attacks. Similar techniques can also help bring illicit drug traffickers to justice.
This burgeoning field of chemical forensics research is the topic of a symposium organized by Carlos Fraga and colleagues at the D.O.E.'s Pacific Northwest National Lab.
Several scientists from PNNL and other institutions will discuss new methods and approaches at the American Chemical Society's national meeting in San Francisco April 2-6.
Many of the source materials in threat agents or drugs have telltale signatures, like impurities for instance, that can help identify its origins, and help investigators, prosecutors and intelligence agencies prosecute or potentially even thwart a chemical attack or drug trafficking.
As part of the 2 day symposium starting April 3, PNNL researchers will discuss chemical attribution signatures, defensibility of chemical threat detection, impurity profiling for sarin precursors, aquatic toxins and position-specific stable isotope ratio measurement for chemical forensics.
Tags: Fundamental Science, National Security, Chemistry, Threat Detection/Prevention, Chemical Detection
Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Lab address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. Founded in 1965, PNNL employs 4,400 staff and has an yearly budget of nearly $1 billion. It is managed by Battelle for the D.O.E.'s Office of Science. As the single biggest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information on PNNL, visit the PNNL News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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