Metal Ion-Catalyzed Alcoholysis as a Strategy for the High Loading Destruction of Chemical Warfare Organophosphorus Agents

Metal-catalyzed alcoholysis has proven to be an effective strategy for the rapid transformation of neutral reactive organophosphate esters of the phosphate, phosphonate, phosphorothioate, and phosphonothioate classes. This chemistry, using La(expn 3+) ( OMe)/Methanol as catalyst/solvent, applied to the V and G classes of chemical warfare agents, demonstrated extremely rapid transformation to low toxicity esters with load factors of 30% for non-fluoride-releasing agents. Variation of the alcohol solvent is tolerated. Variations of the metal catalyst provide potential redress to the fluoride inhibition of the G agent class. These observations indicate that formulations based on mixed alcohol solvents combined with optimized metal catalysts for use in field decontamination, civilian security, and infrastructure scenarios provide a pathway for tuning the reaction media while retaining extremely rapid destruction kinetics. The original document contains color images. Prepared in cooperation with Queen's Univ, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.