Agents in Bulk Containers

The verification of a chemical weapons ban has long been seen as posing severe, even insurmountable, problems. In order to detect violations of a treaty there has to be the capability to check that existing stocks of weapons have been destroyed, and that new weapons - or agent in bulk containers - are not being produced. These are respectively referred to as stockpile destruction and non-production . 

Large quantities of evaporated milk are used to manufacture ice cream, bakery products, and confectionery products (see Bakery processes and LEAVENING agents). When used for manufacturing other foods, evaporated milk is not sterilized, but placed in bulk containers, refrigerated, and used fresh. This product is caHed condensed milk. Skimmed milk may be used as a feedstock to produce evaporated skimmed milk. The moisture content of other Hquid milk products can be reduced by evaporation to produce condensed whey, condensed buttermilk, and concentrated sour milk. 

The sites at Aberdeen, Maryland, and Newport, Indiana, have only one agent each (HD at Aberdeen and VX at Newport) stored in bulk containers. These sites will use hot aqueous hydrolysis (hot aqueous caustic hydrolysis in the case of VX) as the first step in agent destruction. Batch analyses of liquid hydrolysates will be necessary at both sites to ensure that the defined degree of agent destruction (99.9999 percent) is met prior to secondary treatment. 

The baseline incineration process employed by the U.S. Army to destroy stockpiled chemical weapons that are in reasonably good condition is not useful for the destruction of non-stockpile chemical weapons because the deteriorated condition of the latter will not allow their disassembly with the existing equipment. The committee postulates that any use of incineration by the United States in the future for destroying recovered chemical weapons (other than, of course, the use of the currently operating baseline incineration facilities to destroy the U.S. stockpile) would be done only as a last resort in special situations and would be primarily for the destruction of agent stored in bulk containers or recovered from bombs and other weapons. 

In the Alternative Technologies and Approaches Program (ATAP), neutralization processes based on hydrolysis of chemical agent either in pure water or in sodium hydroxide solution have been developed to destroy the chemical agents in bulk (1-ton) containers stored at Aberdeen, Maryland, and Newport, Indiana. Construction of facilities to carry this out is under way (NRC, 1994, 1998). 

The Newport stockpile represents approximately 4 percent of the original stockpile, consisting of bulk VX agent in ton containers. NECDF began neutralization of VX in May 2005 and had neutrahzed 19 percent of the stored VX as of mid-2006. 

Russian CW stockpiles include aviation, rocket artillery and artillery munitions equipped with chemical agents, as well as chemical agents stored in bulk containers. Altogether, the chemical agents in the CW weigh about 40,000 tonnes. According to CW types, the division is as follows 11.7 thousand tonnes of Sarin, 4.8 thousand tonnes of Soman, 15.2 thousand tonnes of VX, and about 7.7 thousand tonnes of Lewisite, Mustard and Mustard -Lewisite mixtures. 

The enthalpy of the copolymerization of trioxane is such that bulk polymerization is feasible. For production, molten trioxane, initiator, and comonomer are fed to the reactor a chain-transfer agent is in eluded if desired. Polymerization proceeds in bulk with precipitation of polymer and the reactor must supply enough shearing to continually break up the polymer bed, reduce particle size, and provide good heat transfer. The mixing requirements for the bulk polymerization of trioxane have been reviewed (22). Raw copolymer is obtained as fine emmb or flake containing imbibed formaldehyde and trioxane which are substantially removed in subsequent treatments which may be combined with removal of unstable end groups. 

Additionally, TADDOL derivative (9) which contained an additional styrene group was first prepared in solution and then underwent bulk polymerization in the presence of various porogenic agents in order to obtain soHd-phase-bound catalyst (10) with the desired porosity (Scheme 4.5) [67]. 

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