Chemical weapons effects on humanity

1. Chemical weapons
(chlorine gas)

2.  Table :
• Introduction
• How to identify the chlorine gas by plant ?!
• Why difficult to assess if a chemical marker is unambiguous for
chlorine ?
• Chlorine weapons in WW1
• Did WW1 have a chemical weapons?!
• Finally
• Reference

3.  Introduction :
• Once used as a chemical weapon in the
World War I, chlorine gas has long been
known for its pulmonary irritant properties.
• On April 22, 1915, German forces shock
Allied soldiers along the western front by
firing more than 150 tons of lethal chlorine
gas against two French colonial divisions at
Ypres, Belgium. This was the first major gas
attack by the Germans, and it devastated
the Allied line.

4.  Con.
• Why chlorine gas is hard to find ?!
When used as a chemical weapon, chlorine gas disperses so rapidly
that evidence of its release can be hard to find.

5.  How to identify the chlorine gas by plant ?!
• To identify potential chlorine-
containing molecules that could serve
as biomarkers, Mason and her
coworkers exposed Aegilops
tauschii.
• The chlorine visibly damages the
tissue immediately.
• The researchers pulverized the plant
tissue, used methanol to isolate its
proteins .

6.  Cont.
• The chlorine penetrated the tissue, so they
found a variety of chlorinated sugars,
metabolites, and lipids in the small-
molecule fraction.
• The peptide had a chlorinated tyrosine
amino acid.

7. Why difficult to assess if a
chemical marker is unambiguous
for chlorine ?

8.  Chlorine weapons in WW1 :
• At Ypres, Belgium, the Germans had transported liquid chlorine gas to
the front in large metal canisters.
• The wind blowing over the French and Canadian lines on 22 April,
they released the gas, which cooled to a liquid and drifted over the
battlefield in a lethal, green-yellow cloud.

9.  Con.
• Chlorine gas, used on the infamous day of April 22,
1915, produces a greenish-yellow cloud that smells
of bleach and immediately irritates the eyes, nose,
lungs, and throat of those exposed to it.
• At high enough doses it kills by asphyxiation. ...
Mustard gas, a potent blistering agent, was dubbed
King of the Battle Gases.

10.  Did ww1 have chemical weapons?
• The use of toxic chemicals as weapons
dates back thousands of years, but the
first large scale use of chemical weapons
was during World War I.
• The types of weapons employed ranged
from disabling chemicals, such as tear
gas, to lethal agents like phosgene,
chlorine, and mustard gas.

11.  Finally:
• “In this study, we were really just trying to establish that these
biomarkers exist, but understanding how long they persist in the plant
material after the exposure event is extremely important for this to
be forensically applicable,” Mason said. Future work will involve
determining whether measurements of these biomarkers can be used
in combination with atmospheric models to tell where and when a
release of chlorine gas occurred

12.  Reference :
• https://cen.acs.org/topics/acs-news.html#acsMeetingNews
• Britannica.com
• The guardian.com
• Wikipedia.org
• World War I Gas Warfare Tactics and Equipment (Book)

13. Thank you ……