Effects of Chemical Agent Demilitarization Products on Candidate Plastic and Elastomeric Materials of Construction for Application in an Alternative Technologies Program Chemical Agent Demilitarization Pilot Plant

摘要

The U.S. Army Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization has initiated a congressionally-mandated project to evaluate various technologies as potential alternatives to using incineration for the destruction of bulk liquid chemical agents. The U.S. Army has conducted a research and development program to identify and optimize these alternative technologies to be used at low-volume bulk storage sites where ton containers filled with HD or VX are stored. Two technologies identified as having high probabilities of achieving low- temperature and low-pressure destruction of chemical agents are chemical neutralization and chemical neutralization followed by biodegradation. The chemical agent neutralization processes ultimately selected for continued evaluation were HD reacted with water; HD reacted with water followed by pH neutralization; VX reacted with a water/sodium hydroxide solution; and VX reacted with water. Seven candidate plastic and elastomeric materials of construction were identified in the design(s) for a potential chemical agent neutralization pilot plant. The objective of the testing in this report was to measure the effects of the above four chemical agent neutralization processes on the seven candidate plastic and elastomeric materials of construction in an environment similar to that encountered during a pilot plant demilitarization process.