Despite the ease of hydrolysis, mustard gas in its solid form has been found to last up to ten years underground. Indeed, in an environment where the water concentration is relatively low, the reaction pathway can be continued once, thiodiglykol is formed using most of the water available on the solid surface, but then the sulfonium intermediate reacts with this instead of another water molecule because the concentration of water molecules on the surface of the mass is now lower than the concentration of thiodiglycol. This produces stable, non-reactive sulfonium salts, which form a protective layer around the bulk material and thus prevent a further reaction. (8) The use of toxic gases or other chemicals, including mustard agents, during war is called chemical warfare, and this type of warfare has been prohibited by the 1925 Geneva Protocol as well as by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. The latter agreement also prohibits the development, production, stockpiling and sale of such weapons. Mustard gas was first used in chemical warfare during World War I in 1917 and more recently during the Iran-Iraq War (1984-88). The term mustard gas refers to several chemicals. Most often, this means sulfur mustard (HD), which is discussed below. The word gas used in connection with mustard gas is not correct because mustard gas is not a real gas, but a liquid. Mustard gas is stored in liquid form and is unlikely to immediately turn into gas when released at normal temperatures. As a liquid, it is colorless and odorless when pure, but brown with a slight garlic smell when mixed with other chemicals.

It dissolves easily in fats and petroleum products. It dissolves slowly in water, where it quickly turns into less toxic chemicals. Therefore, drinking, cooking, bathing and swimming in mustard-contaminated water are activities that are unlikely to result in significant exposure. However, chemicals produced in water can cause skin or eye irritation, rather than the characteristic blisters. If mustard gas is released, it remains in the air or ground for ∼30-50 h with a full potential for toxic effects. New detection techniques are being developed to detect the presence of mustard gas and its metabolites. The technology is portable and detects small amounts of hazardous waste and its oxidized products, which are known to harm unsuspecting civilians. The immunochromatographic test would eliminate the need for expensive and time-consuming laboratory tests and allow for easy-to-read tests to protect civilians from sulfur mustard discharges. [40] In June 1997, India declared its chemical weapons stockpile of 1,044 tons (1,151 short tons) of mustard gas. [44] [45] By the end of 2006, India had destroyed more than 75% of its chemical weapons and material stockpiles and had received an extension for the destruction of the remaining stockpiles until April 2009, and was expected to reach 100% destruction within that timeframe. [44] India notified the United Nations in May 2009 that it had destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles in accordance with the International Chemical Weapons Convention. This makes India the third country to do so, after South Korea and Albania.

[46] [47] This was verified by UN inspectors. Thionyl chloride and phosgene, the latter (GC) is also a suffocating agent, have also been used as chlorinating agents, with the added possibility that both agents create additional mechanisms of toxicity if left as impurities in the final product. In retrospect, it is sad to know that war by poisoning soldiers – so brutally, very personally and used by both sides during the First World War with so little restraint – had already been banned by the Hague Convention of 1899. The irony of the gas war focuses sharply on the life of Fritz Haber, the German chemist who invented phosgene and also the “Haber process,” which allowed the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen in ammonia-based fertilizers. As a German Jew convert to Christianity, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1919 for the Haber trial. Although long dead before the Holocaust, he was one of the chemists who perfected the cyanihydrate-based insecticides Zyklon A and Zyklon B, the latter gas used to kill millions of Jews and others, including some of his relatives. The United States tested mustard gas and other chemical agents such as nitrogen mustard and lewisite on up to 60,000 soldiers during and after World War II. The experiments were closed and, as with Agent Orange, claims for medical care and compensation were systematically rejected, even after the publication of the World War II tests in 1993. The Department of Veterans Affairs said it would contact 4,000 surviving subjects, but it did not, eventually contacting only 600. The results of this study were not published until 1946, when they were published. [38] In a parallel track, after the air raid on Bari in December 1943, doctors from the United States.