The Institute for Research of Chemical Weapons was created in December 1922 in Warsaw. It was subordinate to the Department of Weaponry of the Ministry of Military Affairs. Its statutory task was to conduct scientific and experimental research in the field of inventions and technical amelioration regarding anti-gas defense and production of chemical war resources. The organizer and head of the Institute until December 31, 1931 had been Lt.Col. Eng. Z. Wojnicz-Sianożęcki (1880-1940). The leading unit of the Institute was the Division of Offensive Resources (synthesis of chemical compounds) composed of research laboratories and small scale manufacturing section. At the beginning the unit conducted reconstructive work consisting in synthesis of chemical war resources of World War I, but also modifications of certain known methods of production and improvements eligible for a patent. In mid-1925 the institute’s manager won over to it two chemists: Dr. E. Gryszkiewicz-Trochimowski, a chemist, who gave up academic career at Kiev University, and I. Rabcewicz-Zubkowski, former professor of Petersburg University. E. Gryszkiewicz-Trochimowski started research in search of new compounds in the group of arsenic organic compounds. He developed original methods of synthesis and obtained a number of new arsenic organic compounds and arsenic organic compounds with fluoride of highly toxic effect. In 1933, E. Gryszkiewicz-Trochimowski worked out an original method of synthesis of phosgene oxime, which enabled its production in technical circumstances and its beginning as a new chemical war weapon. Phosgene oxime was produced in Poland under the codename TSD. After World War II, marked as CX, it found its place in arsenals of many countries. I. Rabcewicz-Zubkowski made a synthesis and studied 35 new halogen compounds and dihalogen derivatives of keto cyanide and aromatic-aliphatic keto rhodanates, as well as halogen derivatives of methyl-tetraliloketones . In the 30-s, E. Gryszkiewicz-Trochimowski with his colleagues A. Sporzyński and J. Wnuk developed a new method of synthesis of fluoroorganic compounds, which was kept secret. F/O A. Sporzyński, who served in the air force in Great Britain during World War II, passed on his research results to Cambridge University professor H. McCombie. H. McCombie submitted the classified method of fluorination of aliphatic compounds as his own and patented it (British Secret Patent). Division of Chemical Resources conducted also research on the synthesis of resources destroying durable poisons.
