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As coalition forces in Iraq find increasing evidence that the use of chemical weapons is possible, three Pittsburgh-area companies say their equipment might be used to alert U.S. and British troops of dangerous toxin levels.

U.S. intelligence reports suggest the Iraqi Republican Guard will deploy chemical weapons when coalition forces close in on Baghdad. On Tuesday, U.S. Marines found 3,000 chemical weapon suits and a stockpile of gas masks in a hospital in the city of An Nasiriyah, providing the strongest suggestion yet that the Iraqi regime has been preparing for chemical warfare.

Draeger Safety Inc., Industrial Scientific Corp. and Mine Safety Appliances Co. are considered three of the biggest and best producers of gas-detection equipment -- everything from gas detection tape that changes color when a toxin is present to elaborate testing equipment. None of the companies were able to confirm this week if their equipment is being used in the second Gulf War, but all three have Department of Defense contracts to provide gas-detection and other safety equipment.

Federal research grants following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have increased funding for gas detection product development at both private companies and universities.

"We've sold a number of those types of items, mainly in the past few years," said Wes Kenneweg, president of the Pittsburgh-based U.S. subsidiary of German-owned Draeger.

One Draeger product that could be used in the event of a chemical attack is a kit that tests for a number of biological toxins, including sarin, mustard gas and other nerve agents. Because of security issues surrounding such products, Draeger, of Findlay, has to screen buyers before delivering the $3,000 kits.

"We don't sell this to just anyone," Kenneweg said.

Robert Levis, director of Temple University's Advanced Photonic Research Center in Philadelphia, said every U.S. Army soldier carries a kit either made by Draeger or similar to the ones made by Draeger.

"They're really field chemistry sets -- you'd have soldiers out on the battlefield, actually mixing stuff up on the fly to see if it's a nerve agent or a choking agent," Levis said. "If there's suspicion in the field -- if they came across a dead chicken in the road, or an oily substance on the ground -- they'd put on their chemical suits, and they wouldn't take them off until these tests had determined that it's safe to do so."

Temple's Advanced Photonic Research Center recently received a $5 million Department of Defense research grant to develop new methods for toxin detection. The center is working on a laser system that could pinpoint the exact agent in the test sample. Current tests are generally limited to recognizing toxins but cannot determine which specific agent is present.

Additionally, current tests either take too long -- anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour -- or are prone to register false negatives.

"The technology out there now is good, but it does register a lot of false negatives," Levis said. "In some cases, it can't tell the difference between sarin and cigarette smoke."

Oakdale-based Industrial Scientific makes a variety of portable gas monitors. The handheld devices are slightly bigger than cell phones and can be used to detect a wide range of toxins, including ammonia, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane. They don't, however, detect agents typically found in chemical weapons.

"There are very few, if any, electronic monitors out there that can detect chemical and biological warfare agents," said Kay Mangieri, marketing director at Industrial Scientific. "That's changing with research that's going on at government-funded labs, but right now, commercially viable products like that are few and far between."

As a result, electronic monitors made by Industrial Scientific and other companies are more likely to be found testing toxin levels in a confined, war plane refueling area than they are on the battlefield. But the company has seen a surge in business following Sept. 11, and its ITX Multigas monitors were used as part of the clean up effort at the World Trade Center site in New York City.

"The U.S. government is a huge purchaser of our products," Mangieri said. "Almost every branch of the government uses our equipment for various reasons."

One of Industrial Scientific's chief competitors is also headquartered in the area. Mine Safety Appliances, of O'Hara, makes a number of similar handheld gas-detection devices, gas masks and monitoring equipment.

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