Washington, Dec 04: Researchers led by an
Indian-American scientist have developed a decontamination
"wipe" to clean up toxic chemical warfare agents as part of a
study to develop a system to counter biological terror
attacks.
Seshadri Ramkumar along with other researchers at The
Institute of Environmental and Human Health (TIEHH) at Texas
Tech University comes out with the product at a time when a
Congressionally mandated study has warned of a
chemical-biological attack in the world in next five years.
The evaluation of the Nonwoven dry wipe product
"Fibertec", was performed as part of a study by the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory using mustard gas and other
toxic chemicals.
Professor Ramkumar supervises the Nonwovens and Advanced
Materials Laboratory at Texas Tech. He and other scientists
with the Admiral Elmo R Zumwalt Jr National Programme for
Countermeasures to Biological and Chemical Threats have worked
to create a product that will be an asset to military and
homeland security efforts in the post-Sept 11 environment.
Researchers found that the Texas Tech created product,
which out performed thirty different de-contamination
materials including those currently used in the military
de-contamination kits.
The results are published online in the American Chemical
Societys peer-reviewed journal Industrial & Engineering
Chemistry Research and titled, "Next Generation
Non-particulate Dry Nonwoven Pad for Chemical Warfare Agent
Decontamination".
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, December 04, 2008, 00:00