Enhanced Contaminated Human Remains Pouch: Initial development and preliminary performance assessments

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela M. Iseli, BS ◽  
Hai-Doo Kwen, PhD ◽  
Mayeen Ul-Alam, MS ◽  
Mahalingam Balasubramanian, PhD ◽  
Shyamala Rajagopalan, PhD
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Response ◽  
Sulfur Mustard ◽  
Human Remains ◽  
Performance Assessments ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Private Company ◽  
Initial Development ◽  
Toxic Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Functional Prototype

Objectives: To produce a proof of concept prototype Enhanced Contaminated Human Remains Pouch (ECHRP) with self-decontamination capability to provide increased protection to emergency response personnel.Design: The key objective was to decrease the concentration of toxic chemicals through the use of an absorbent and reactive nanocellulose liner. Additionally, nanomaterials with biocidal properties were developed and tested as a “stand-alone” treatment.Setting: Private company research laboratory.Patients/participants: Not applicable.Interventions: Not applicable.Main outcome measures: Production of a functional prototype.Results: A functional prototype capable of mitigating the threats due to sulfur mustard, Soman, and a large variety of liquid and vapor toxic industrial chemicals was produced. Stand-alone biocidal treatment efficacy was validated.Conclusions: The ECHRP provides superior protection from both chemical and biological hazards to various emergency response personnel and human remains handlers.

Emergency Management of Chemical Weapons Injuries

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Sulfur Mustard ◽  
Nerve Agents ◽  
Chemical Weapons ◽  
Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Upper Airways ◽  
Toxic Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Chlorine Gas ◽  
Mechanism Of Toxicity ◽  
Cholinergic Syndrome ◽  
Riot Control

The potential for chemical weapons to be used in terrorism is a real possibility. Classes of chemical weapons include nerve agents, vesicants (blister agents), choking agents, incapacitating agents, riot control agents, blood agents, and toxic industrial chemicals. The nerve agents work by blocking the actions of acetylcholinesterase leading to a cholinergic syndrome. Nerve agents include sarin, tabun, VX, cyclosarin, and soman. The vesicants include sulfur mustard and lewisite. The vesicants produce blisters and also damage the upper airways. Choking agents include phosgene and chlorine gas. Choking agents cause pulmonary edema. Incapacitating agents include fentanyl and its derivatives and adamsite. Riot control agents include Mace and pepper spray. Blood agents include cyanide. The mechanism of toxicity for cyanide is blocking oxidative phosphorylation. Toxic industrial chemicals include agents such as formaldehyde, hydrofluoric acid, and ammonia.

scholarly journals Modeling and Risk Analysis of Chemical Terrorist Attacks: A Bayesian Network Method

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 2051 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rongchen Zhu ◽  
Xiaofeng Hu ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Han Ye ◽  
Nan Jia
Keyword(s):  
Risk Analysis ◽  
Bayesian Network ◽  
Emergency Response ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Toxic Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Terrorism Risk ◽  
Chemical Terrorism ◽  
The Impact

The chemical terrorist attack is an unconventional form of terrorism with vast scope of influence, strong concealment, high technical means and severe consequences. Chemical terrorism risk refers to the uncertainty of the effects of terrorist organisations using toxic industrial chemicals/drugs and classic chemical weapons to attack the population. There are multiple risk factors infecting chemical terrorism risk, such as the threat degree of terrorist organisations, attraction of targets, city emergency response capabilities, and police defense capabilities. We have constructed a Bayesian network of chemical terrorist attacks to conduct risk analysis. The scenario analysis and sensitivity analysis are applied to validate the model and analyse the impact of the vital factor on the risk of chemical terrorist attacks. The results show that the model can be used for simulation and risk analysis of chemical terrorist attacks. In terms of controlling the risk of chemical terrorist attack, patrol and surveillance are less critical than security checks and police investigations. Security check is the most effective approach to decrease the probability of successful attacks. Different terrorist organisations have different degrees of threat, but the impacts of which are limited to the success of the attack. Weapon types and doses are sensitive to casualties, but it is the level of emergency response capabilities that dominates the changes in casualties. Due to the limited number of defensive resources, to get the best consequence, the priority of the deployment of defensive sources should be firstly given to governmental buildings, followed by commercial areas. These findings may provide the theoretical basis and method support for the combat of the public security department and the safety prevention decision of the risk management department.

Biological and Phytochemical Screening of Fumaria indica extract on Chemically Induced Hepatocellular Carcinoma with Reference to Biochemical Parameters

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irfan Aziz ◽  
Birendra Shrivastava ◽  
Chandana Venkateswara Rao2 ◽  
Sadath Ali
Keyword(s):  
Free Radicals ◽  
Liver Disease ◽  
Liver Cancer ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Food Additives ◽  
Ethanolic Extract ◽  
Hepatoprotective Activity ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Toxic Industrial Chemicals

Liver disease or liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer mortality in the world. Hepatitis viral infection, food additives, alcohol, fungal toxins (aflatoxins), toxic industrial chemicals, air and water pollutants are the major risk factors of liver cancer. Moreover, due to high tolerance of liver, HCC is seldom detected at an early stage and once detected treatment faces a poor prognosis in most cases.Fumaria indica possesses hepatoprotective activity as evidenced by the significant and dose dependent restoring the activities of entire liver cancer marker enzymes, diminution in tumor incidence, decrease in lipid peroxidation (LPO) and increase in the level of antioxidant enzymes (GSH, CAT, SOD, GPx and GST) through scavenging of free radicals, or by enhancing the activity of antioxidant, which then detoxify free radicals. These factors protect cells from ROS damage in NDEA and CCl4-induced hepatocarcinogenesis. Histopathological observations of liver tissues too correlated with the biochemical observations. Thus, present investigation suggested that the Fumaria indica would exert a chemoprotective effect by reversing the oxidant-antioxidant imbalance during hepatocarcinogenesis induced by NDEA and CCl4. Besides Fumaria indicais very much effective in preventing NDEA-induced multistage hepatocarcinogenesis possibly through antioxidant and antigenotoxic nature, which was confirmed by various liver injury and biochemical tumour markers enzymes. The hepatoprotective activity of a Fumaria indicaof 50 % ethanolic extract was studied using rats. The animals received a single intraperitoneal injection of N-nitrosodiethylamine 200mg/kg body wt followed by subcutaneous injection of CCl4 in a dose of 3 ml/kg body wt. Fumaria indica extract dose dependently and significantly the increase in serum hepatic enzyme levels after NDEAand CCl4 treatment compared to the toxin control group. The results of this study confirmed the antioxidant and hepatoprotective activity of the Fumaria indicaextract against carbon tetrachlorideand N-nitrosodiethylamine induced hepatotoxicity in rats. In addition to this, studies on molecular aspect of hepatoprotective therapy will give mechanistic information in hepatoprotective therapy and also critical balance should be there between the animal model and clinical research. The hepatoprotective properties of Fumaria indicashould provide useful information in the possible application in hepatic liver disease.

scholarly journals Fast Sensing of Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN) Vapors Using a Hand-Held Ion Mobility Spectrometer with Nonradioactive Ionization Source

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 5045
Author(s):  
Victor Bocos-Bintintan ◽  
Ileana Andreea Ratiu
Keyword(s):  
Ion Mobility ◽  
Hydrogen Cyanide ◽  
Limit Of Detection ◽  
Chemical Warfare Agent ◽  
Source Model ◽  
Negative Ion ◽  
Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Ionization Source ◽  
Toxic Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Negative Ion Mode

Sensitive real-time detection of vapors produced by toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) always represents a stringent priority. Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is definitely a TIC, being widely used in various industries and as an insecticide; it is a reactive, very flammable, and highly toxic compound that affects the central nervous system, cardiovascular system, eyes, nose, throat, and also has systemic effects. Moreover, HCN is considered a blood chemical warfare agent. This study was focused toward quick detection and quantification of HCN in air using time-of-flight ion mobility spectrometry (ToF IMS). Results obtained clearly indicate that IMS can rapidly detect HCN at sub-ppmv levels in air. Ion mobility spectrometric response was obtained in the negative ion mode and presented one single distinct product ion, at reduced ion mobility K0 of 2.38 cm2 V−1 s−1. Our study demonstrated that by using a miniaturized commercial IMS system with nonradioactive ionization source model LCD-3.2E (Smiths Detection Ltd., London, UK), one can easily measure HCN at concentrations of 0.1 ppmv (0.11 mg m−3) in negative ion mode, which is far below the OSHA PEL-TWA value of 10 ppmv. Measurement range was from 0.1 to 10 ppmv and the estimated limit of detection LoD was ca. 20 ppbv (0.02 mg m−3).

Mobile Decontamination Units—Room for Improvement?

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 425-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascale Ribordy ◽  
David Rocksén ◽  
Uno Dellgar ◽  
Sven-Åke Persson ◽  
Kristina Arnoldsson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Toxic Substances ◽  
Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Exposure Limits ◽  
Publication Type ◽  
Toxic Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Environment Effects ◽  
Short Term Exposure ◽  
Technical Solutions ◽  
And Training ◽  
Accident Site

AbstractIntroductionMobile decontamination units are intended to be used at the accident site to decontaminate persons contaminated by toxic substances. A test program was carried out to evaluate the efficacy of mobile decontamination units.ObjectiveThe tests included functionality, methodology, inside environment, effects of wind direction, and decontamination efficacy.MethodsThree different types of units were tested during summer and winter conditions. Up to 15 test-persons per trial were contaminated with the imitation substances Purasolve ethyl lactate (PEL) and methyl salicylate (MES). Decontamination was carried out according to standardized procedures. During the decontamination trials, the concentrations of the substances inside the units were measured. After decontamination, substances evaporating from test-persons and blankets as well as remaining amounts in the units were measured.ResultsThe air concentrations of PEL and MES inside the units during decontamination in some cases exceeded short-term exposure limits for most toxic industrial chemicals. This was a problem, especially during harmful wind conditions, i.e., wind blowing in the same direction as persons moving through the decontamination units. Although decontamination removed a greater part of the substances from the skin, the concentrations evaporating from some test-persons occasionally were high and potentially harmful if the substances had been toxic. The study also showed that blankets placed in the units absorbed chemicals and that the units still were contaminated five hours after the end of operations.ConclusionsAfter decontamination, the imitation substances still were present and evaporating from the contaminated persons, blankets, and units. These results indicate a need for improvements in technical solutions, procedures, and training.RibordyP, RocksénD, DellgarU, PerssonS, ArnoldssonK, EkåsenH, HäggbomS, NerfO, LjungqvistA, GrythD, ClaessonO. Mobile decontamination units—room for improvement?. Prehosp Disaster Med.2012;27(4):1–7.

scholarly journals Efficient identification of hydrophobic MOFs: application in the capture of toxic industrial chemicals

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 529-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peyman Z. Moghadam ◽  
David Fairen-Jimenez ◽  
Randall Q. Snurr
Keyword(s):  
Metal Organic Frameworks ◽  
Large Database ◽  
Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Toxic Industrial Chemicals ◽  
Hydrophobic Materials ◽  
Henry's Constants ◽  
Metal Organic ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Computational Strategy

A novel and quick computational strategy is developed based on water Henry's constants to distinguish different levels of hydrophobicity among metal–organic frameworks. The technique is applied to a large database of MOFs to identify hydrophobic materials.

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