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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance.
This is a report of work supported by Contract DAAD19-00-C-0009 between the U.S. Army and the National Academy of Sciences. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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National Research Council
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COMMITTEE ON REVIEW AND EVALUATION OF THE ARMY CHEMICAL STOCKPILE DISPOSAL PROGRAM
DAVID S. KOSSON, chair,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
CHARLES E. KOLB, vice chair,
Aerodyne Research, Inc., Billerica, Massachusetts
DAVID H. ARCHER,
Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
PIERO M. ARMENANTE,
New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark
DENNIS C. BLEY,
Buttonwood Consulting, Inc., Oakton, Virginia
JERRY L.R. CHANDLER,
George Mason University, McLean, Virginia
FRANK P. CRIMI,
Lockheed Martin (retired), Saratoga, California
J. ROBERT GIBSON,
DuPont Life Sciences, Wilmington, Delaware
MICHAEL R. GREENBERG,
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick
KATHRYN E. KELLY,
Delta Toxicology, Crystal Bay, Nevada
PETER B. LEDERMAN,
New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark
JAMES F. MATHIS,
Exxon Corporation (retired), Houston, Texas
CHARLES I. McGINNIS, consultant,
Charlottesville, Virginia
CHARLES F. REINHARDT,
DuPont Company (retired), Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania (since 1/5/00)
H. GREGOR RIGO,
Rigo & Rigo Associates, Inc., Berea, Ohio (until 3/6/00)
KOZO SAITO,
University of Kentucky, Lexington
W. LEIGH SHORT,
URS Greiner Woodward-Clyde (retired), Mount Pleasant, South Carolina
ARNOLD F. STANCELL,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
STEVEN R. TANNENBAUM,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge
CHADWICK A. TOLMAN,
National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia
WILLIAM TUMAS,
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico
Board on Army Science and Technology Liaison
RICHARD A. CONWAY,
Union Carbide Corporation (retired), Charleston, West Virginia
Staff
DONALD L. SIEBENALER, study director
HARRISON T. PANNELLA, program officer
WILLIAM E. CAMPBELL, senior project assistant
DANIEL E. J. TALMAGE, JR., senior project assistant
BOARD ON ARMY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
WILLIAM H. FORSTER, chair,
Northrop Grumman Corporation, Baltimore, Maryland
THOMAS L. MCNAUGHER, vice chair,
RAND Corporation, Washington, D.C. (until 12/31/99)
ELIOT A. COHEN,
Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C.
RICHARD A. CONWAY,
Union Carbide Corporation (retired), Charleston, West Virginia
GILBERT F. DECKER,
Walt Disney Imagineering, Glendale, California
LAWRENCE J. DELANEY,
Delaney Group, Potomac, Maryland (until 12/31/99)
PATRICK F. FLYNN,
Cummins Engine Company, Columbus, Indiana
EDWARD J. HAUG,
University of Iowa, Iowa City
ROBERT J. HEASTON,
Guidance and Control Information Analysis Center (retired), Naperville, Illinois
ELVIN R. HEIBERG, III,
Heiberg Associates, Inc., Mason Neck, Virginia (until 2/29/00)
GERALD J. IAFRATE,
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana
DONALD R. KEITH, consultant,
Alexandria, Virginia
KATHRYN V. LOGAN,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
JOHN E. MILLER,
Oracle Corporation, Reston, Virginia
JOHN H. MOXLEY III,
Korn/Ferry International, Los Angeles, California
STEWART D. PERSONICK,
Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
MILLARD F. ROSE,
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
GEORGE T. SINGLEY III,
Hicks & Associates, McLean, Virginia
CLARENCE G. THORNTON,
Army Research Laboratories (retired), Colts Neck, New Jersey
JOHN D. VENABLES,
Venables and Associates, Towson, Maryland
JOSEPH J. VERVIER,
ENSCO, Inc., Melbourne, Florida
ALLEN C. WARD,
Ward Synthesis, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
Staff
BRUCE A. BRAUN, director
MICHAEL A. CLARKE, associate director
CHRIS JONES, financial associate
DEANNA SPARGER, senior project assistant
Preface
The United States has maintained a stockpile of chemical warfare agents and munitions for more than half a century. In 1985, Public Law 99-145 mandated an “expedited” effort to dispose of M55 rockets containing unitary chemical warfare agents because of their potential for self-ignition. This program soon expanded into the Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program (CSDP), whose mission is to eliminate the entire stockpile of unitary chemical weapons. The CSDP developed the baseline incineration system for that purpose. Since 1987, the National Research Council (NRC), through the Committee on Review and Evaluation of the Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program (Stockpile Committee), has provided technical and scientific advice and counsel to the Army's disposal program. In 1992, after setting several intermediate goals and dates, Congress enacted Public Law 102-484, which directed the Army to dispose of the entire stockpile of unitary chemical warfare agents and munitions by December 31, 2004. In 1994, the committee endorsed the baseline incineration system as an adequate technology for destroying the stockpile.
In the 1970s, the Army commissioned studies of different disposal technologies and tested several of them. In 1982, the Army selected incineration as the method it would use for the disposal of agents and associated propellants and explosives and the thermal decontamination of metal parts. In 1984, the NRC Committee on Demilitarizing Chemical Munitions and Agents reviewed a range of disposal technologies and endorsed the Army's selection of incineration. Since then, in response to public concerns about incineration and the evolution of other technologies, the NRC has also carried out several evaluations of alternative disposal technologies (Alternative Technologies for the Destruction of Chemical Agents and Munitions [1993], Review and Evaluation of Alternative Chemical Disposal Technologies [1996], and Review and Evaluation of Alternative Technologies for Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons [1999]). These reports recommended the development of chemical detoxification technologies for use at the two stockpile sites (Aberdeen, Maryland, and Newport, Indiana) where only bulk chemical agent (i.e., no energetically configured munitions) is stored.
The Army's selected nonincineration technologies for the Aberdeen, Maryland, and Newport, Indiana, stockpile sites both use chemical hydrolysis (reaction with alkaline water at elevated temperatures) to destroy chemical agent. The hydrolysis process is followed by either biodegradation (for treatment of mustard hydrolysis products at Aberdeen) or supercritical water oxidation (for destruction of VX hydrolysis products at Newport) to comply with requirements of the Chemical Weapons Convention and with U.S. environmental regulations. The development of these processes required extensive laboratory, bench-scale, and pilot-scale testing of individual processing steps to support engineering designs for the complete, integrated processes.
The Stockpile Committee has been evaluating the engineering process designs for integrating the individual processing steps for each site in parallel with the finalization of these designs by the Army and its contractors. In this report, the committee began with the design documents used by the Army as a basis for selecting final design contractors. Additional test data and design modifications suggested by the final design contractors were also reviewed as they became available through documentation and briefings. The committee 's objective is not to provide a detailed, comprehensive design review of the processes, but to assess the integration of processing steps, analyze major design changes, and identify overarching issues that should be addressed to enhance safety and efficacy.
The committee greatly appreciates the support and assistance of NRC staff members, Donald L. Siebenaler, Harrison T. Pannella, William E. Campbell, Daniel E.J. Talmage Jr., and Carol R. Arenberg, in the production of this report.
David S. Kosson, chair
Charles E. Kolb, vice chair
Committee on Review and Evaluation of the Army Chemical Stockpile Disposal Program
Acknowledgments
This report has been reviewed by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council's Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the authors and the NRC in making the published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The contents of the review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their participation in the review of this report:
Homi C. Bhedwar, E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company
Thomas B. Brill, University of Delaware
David H. Johnson, EQE International, Inc.
Edwin N. Lightfoot, Jr., University of Wisconsin
Cecil Lue-Hing, consultant
Dan Luss, University of Houston
George W. Parshall, E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company
Donald R. Paul, University of Texas
Harrison Shull, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School
Thomas G. Spiro, University of British Columbia
Douglass F. Taber, University of Delaware
Jefferson W. Tester, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Arthur W. Westerberg, Carnegie Mellon University
While the individuals listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, responsibility for the final content of this report rests solely with the authoring committee and the NRC.
Figures and Tables
2-1 |
Basic component processes in the ADP for the ABCDF, |
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2-2 |
Basic component processes in the ADP for the NECDF, |
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6-1 |
Timing of risk management activities, |
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A-1 |
Simplified flow diagram for the ABCDF, |
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A-2 |
ADP VOC treatment system, wetted-wall evaporation followed by ultraviolet radiation and liquid-phase carbon adsorption, |
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A-3 |
Current VOC treatment system, air stripping followed by gas-phase carbon adsorption, |
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B-1 |
Simplified flow diagram for the NECDF, |
3-1 |
Preliminary Results of Corrosion Testing with Noble Metals and Superalloys, |
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A-1 |
Process Inputs for HD/Water Neutralization with Biodegradation, |
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A-2 |
Process Outputs for HD/Water Neutralization with Biodegradation, |
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A-3 |
Volume of Off-Gas, |
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B-1 |
Process Inputs for VX Neutralization/Posttreatment, |
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B-2 |
Process Outputs for VX Neutralization/Posttreatment, |
Acronyms
ABCDF
Aberdeen Chemical Agent Disposal Facility
ACWA
Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment
ADP
acquisition design package
CWC
Chemical Weapons Convention
EST
engineering-scale test
GC
gas chromatography
HD
distilled mustard
HE
hazard evaluation
HPLC
high-performance liquid chromatography
HRA
health risk assessment
HVAC
heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
ITMS
ion-trap mass spectrometry
MOC
material(s) of construction
MS
mass spectroscopy
MSD
mass selective detection
MSZ
magnesia-stabilized zirconia
NECDF
Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility
NMR
nuclear magnetic resonance
NRC
National Research Council
PMCD
Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization
ppb
parts per billion
QRA
quantitative risk assessment
RCRA
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
SBR
sequencing biological reactor
SCWO
supercritical water oxidation
SWEC
Stone and Webster Engineering Company
TDG
thiodiglycol
VOC
volatile organic compound
VX
a nerve agent
YSZ
yttria-stabilized zirconia