Chemical Agents of Opportunity for Terrorism: TICs & TIMs

Chemical Agents of Opportunity for Terrorism
Training Support Package
Participant Guide
Slide 18
Chemical Agents of Opportunity for Terrorism:
TICs & TIMs
• Irritancy
Comparative Toxicity Of Likely
Terrorist Industrial Gases
• Danger/Lethality
Ammonia > Phosgene
Phosgene > Ammonia
Module One – Toxic Industrial Gases as Terrorist Threats
18
Given the same dose – concentration and duration of exposure – ammonia (to be
discussed next) which is water soluble –tends to be much more irritating then phosgene
which is poorly water soluble. However, phosgene (to be discussed later in this talk)
which is far less irritating in the acute exposure setting, is far more lethal given similar
exposure concentrations.
The fact that phosgene is far more lethal at equivalent concentration is borne out by the
different 30 minute AEGL3 (major or life threatening impact) for these two compounds.
For ammonia the 30 minute AEGL3 is 1600 ppm while for phosgene the equivalent
value is 1.5 ppm. This data suggest that at equivalent airborne concentrations phosgene
is 1000 times as potent as ammonia.
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