NRI develops decontamination "wipe"

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


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