Chemical warfare agents are solid, fluid or gaseous substances, affecting in minor quantities humans, animals or plants. The effects are irritation or incapacitation in the best case, and toxic effects leading to death in the worst case. There are many ways to classify chemical warfare agents; one of them is according to the main symptoms. Nerve agents are organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanisms by which nerves transfer messages to organs. The disruption is caused by the blocking of acetylcholinesterase (AchE), an enzyme that catalyzes the breakdown of acetylcholine.
Nerve agents are highly toxic chemical compounds that can cause serious harm to humans and animals. Due to their potential use in chemical warfare and terrorist attacks, the accurate identification of nerve agents is critical for the safety and security of individuals and communities. High-Performance Thin-Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) is a reliable and widely used analytical technique for the identification of nerve agents. HPTLC separates the individual components of a mixture, making it possible to identify specific nerve agents based on their characteristic retention factor (RF) values. In this case study, we have transferred the initial TLC method to HPTLC for the detection of nerve agents RVX, VX, GD, GA, GF, and GB.