Hyperspectral analysis for standoff detection of dimethyl methylphosphonate on building materials

Publication date: 1 November 2016
Source:Building and Environment, Volume 108
Author(s): Daniel Baseley, Luke Wunderlich, Grady Phillips, Kevin Gross, Glen Perram, Stuart Willison, Rebecca Phillips, Matthew Magnuson, Sang Don Lee, Willie F. Harper
Detecting organophosphates in indoor settings can greatly benefit from more efficient and faster methods of surveying large surface areas than conventional approaches, which sample small surface areas followed by extraction and analysis. This study examined a standoff detection technique utilizing hyperspectral imaging for analysis of building materials in near-real time. In this proof-of-concept study, dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP) was applied to stainless steel and laminate coupons and spectra were collected during active illumination. Absorbance bands at approximately 1275 cm⁻¹ and 1050 cm⁻¹ were associated with phosphorus-oxygen double bond (PO) and phosphorus-oxygen-carbon (POC) bond stretches of DMMP, respectively. The magnitude of these bands increased linearly (r² = 0.93) with DMMP across the full absorbance spectrum, between ν1 = 877 cm⁻¹ to ν2 = 1262 cm⁻¹. Comparisons between bare and contaminated surfaces on stainless steel using the spectral contrast angle technique indicated that the bare samples showed no sign of contamination, with large uniformly distributed contrast angles of 45°–55°, while the contaminated samples had smaller spectral contact angles of <20° in the contaminated region and >40° in the uncontaminated region. The laminate contaminated region exhibited contact angles of <25°. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report to demonstrate that hyperspectral imaging can be used to detect DMMP on building materials, with detection levels similar to concentrations expected for some organophosphate deposition scenarios.