Revealing the origin of chemical weapons

Continuing threats of military conflicts and terrorism may involve the misuse of toxic chemicals as weapons. Recent concerns of chemical attacks in Ukraine and the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and Alexei Navalny emphasize the continued risk of chemical weapons use. In case of an alleged use of chemical weapons, forensic investigations are conducted to investigate whether a chemical attack has happened and if so, to establish the nature of the utilized agent. This is essential for providing suitable care for victims and maintaining the safety of first responders. In addition to chemical identification, it is important to determine the origin of chemical threat agents, to accurately reconstruct events and identify the perpetrators or exonerate innocent suspects. The ultimate goal is to prevent criminal acts before they are executed. Chemical attribution research aims to establish methods that can indicate whether a link exists between a material found at a crime scene and a person, location, or other evidence. Chemical attribution signatures are usually based on impurities related to the production, processing, and storage of chemicals. Unfortunately, the unambiguous identification of
these chemicals is complicated due to their presence at extremely low concentrations.
It is also challenging to detect intact chemical warfare agents, since they are highly reactive and rapidly degrade in the environment or metabolize in the human body. Sensitive analytical techniques are required for their detection at trace levels in complex matrices. The obtained characteristic chemical fingerprint can support law enforcement in tactical investigations and ultimately provide important evidence in a court of law. Therefore, the primary goal of this thesis is to develop multi-analytical profiling strategies for chemical warfare agents and associated dispersion devices to provide valuable forensic intelligence information.