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Suggested Citation:"SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS." National Research Council. 1993. Alternative Technologies for the Destruction of Chemical Agents and Munitions. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2218.
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Page 277

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J ELECTROCHEMICAL OXIDATION 277 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES The MEO process operates at a temperature of less than 100°C, and at atmospheric pressure. It is stable in operation over long time periods; perturbations of flow, temperature, or electrolyte composition do not cause adverse reactions. The reactivity of the chemical process can be controlled to a degree by control of the temperature. The process can be stopped by terminating power input to the cell. The amount of organic material held up in the cell or the chemical reactor at any time is very small. The process is continuous and agent would be destroyed as fast as it is fed; the concentration in the exit stream would be very low, corresponding to 99.9999 percent destruction. The process is energy intensive. The estimated electric energy requirement (800 kW for 24 hours to destroy 1 ton of GB) is several-fold larger than the heat of combustion of the agent. Part of this energy goes into the production of H2 (or HNO2), but most of it must be removed as heat. This large heat flow must be removed at low temperature-less than 100°C-to prevent the electrolyte from boiling. The electric energy is provided as a very large current flow, at low voltage. This power will require a substantial substation of transformers, rectifiers, and large busbars to carry the necessary current, which are standard electrolysis equipment. The presence of heteroatoms, such as fluorine, sulfur, or phosphorus, complicates the operation because they remain in the electrolyte solution as fluoride, sulfate, or phosphate ions. For a steady-state operation they must be removed continuously. In the process, the metal mediating ion, (e.g., silver) also would be withdrawn and lost to the reactor. It would be separated and recovered from the other materials of the spent electrolyte. The amount of mediating ion to be recovered will depend on its concentration in the solution, which will in turn depend on important system variables the chemical reaction rate and the concentration of oxidizing ion required to achieve the organic destruction and the flow past the anode to re-oxidize the ion (i.e., Ag+ going to Ag2+). This ion loss cannot be predicted but could be substantial: several hundred pounds of silver per ton of GB destroyed, for example. The process would be applicable only to agent and not to metal parts, energetics, or dunnage. SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS Problems can develop that set operating limits on the processes: • The anode requires a reasonably uniform concentration of the

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The U.S. Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program was established with the goal of destroying the nation's stockpile of lethal unitary chemical weapons. Since 1990 the U.S. Army has been testing a baseline incineration technology on Johnston Island in the southern Pacific Ocean. Under the planned disposal program, this baseline technology will be imported in the mid to late 1990s to continental United States disposal facilities; construction will include eight stockpile storage sites.

In early 1992 the Committee on Alternative Chemical Demilitarization Technologies was formed by the National Research Council to investigate potential alternatives to the baseline technology. This book, the result of its investigation, addresses the use of alternative destruction technologies to replace, partly or wholly, or to be used in addition to the baseline technology. The book considers principal technologies that might be applied to the disposal program, strategies that might be used to manage the stockpile, and combinations of technologies that might be employed.

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