Pharmaceutical technology offers various dosage forms that can be applied interdisciplinary. One of them are spherical pellets which could be utilized as a carrier in emerging second-generation detection tubes. This detection system requires carriers with high specific surface area (SSA), which should allow better adsorption of toxic substances and detection reagents. In this study, a magnesium aluminometasilicate with high SSA was utilized along with various concentrations of volatile substances (menthol, camphor and ammonium bicarbonate) to increase further the carrier SSA after their sublimation. The samples were evaluated in terms of physicochemical parameters, their morphology was assessed by scanning electron microscopy, and the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method was utilized to measure SSA. The samples were then impregnated with a detection reagent o-phenylenediamine-pyronine and tested with diphosgene. Only samples prepared using menthol or camphor were found to show red fluorescence under the UV light in addition to the eye-visible red-violet color. This allowed the detection of diphosgene/phosgene at a concentration of only 0.1 mg/m3 in the air for samples M20.0 and C20.0 with their SSA higher than 115 m2/g, thus exceeding the sensitivity of the first-generation DT-12 detection tube.

Department of Chemistry Faculty of Science Masaryk University Kotlářská 2 611 37 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Pharmaceutical Technology Faculty of Pharmacy Masaryk University Palackého tř 1946 1 612 00 Brno Czech Republic

Faculty of Biomedical Engineering Czech Technical University Prague Sítná 3105 272 00 Kladno Czech Republic

Faculty of Environmental Technology University of Chemistry and Technology Technická 5 166 28 Prague Czech Republic

Oritest Spol s r o Čerčanská 640 30 140 00 Prague Czech Republic

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