Toxic industrial agents decontamination

The decontamination of toxic industrial agents and CW agents is a rather difficult task since most of these compounds are lipophilic, while the reasonable decontaminating agents are hydrophilic. Only kinetically stable emulsion systems or thermodynamically stable microemulsions can be used to overcome this difficulty. 

Because of the wide range of often-conflicting requirements placed on the design of decontaminating materials, it is practically impossible to design a formulation and application method that can accommodate all needs. This problem becomes even more difficult when one considers the possible use of toxic industrial chemicals as chemical warfare agents. 

Toxins, new-generation nerve agents, and toxic industrial chemicals have chemical properties different from those of traditional chemical agents. Fielded decontamination materials may not be effective against some of these threats. 

The most effective way to decontaminate contaminated surfaces is the degradation of CW agents and toxic industrial chemicals by reactive compounds. To do so, reactive chemicals and ideally extractively acting solvents have to be part of the decontamination media used. 

Great efforts have been made in order to replace established but harmful, corrosive, and therefore, obsolete decontamination media for chemical warfare agents and toxic industrial chemicals. Chapter 14 by Hellweg and coworkers discusses the considerable advantages of microemulsion-based decontamination systems with respect to practical boundary conditions and fundamental principles of microemulsion formation. Additionally, the authors illustrate the further development to versatile, environmentally compatible and nonharmful systems containing nanoparticles and enzymes as active components. 

Currently, scientists and experts from many countries are working on development and implementation of a readiness for anti terrorist actions. In addition to chemical weapons, terrorists can use various toxic chemicals from chemical industry, agriculture or products released from terrorist acts on industrial facilities. The arsenal of chemical agents that can be used as terrorist agents is practically unlimited. The focus of this workshop was assessment of scientific concepts and practical means for management of chemical agent casualties in the area of terrorist attack with emphasis on improving the medical treatment and decontamination. These problems were analyzed from an interdisciplinary perspective. 

Another very important green chemistry solvent is supercritical water (SCW) [14], Water under supercritical conditions is an extremely powerful oxidizing and cleansing agent that has been proven remarkably promising as a soil decontaminant by efficiently degrading persistent organic toxic wastes that are difficult to eliminate from polluted soils, and in the treatment of several types of industrial wastes such as textile and cellulose wastewater [2],... 

Up to now, we have examined water in its three states vapour, liquid and solid. Another state has relatively recently revealed to be of interest the supercritical state, where an assembly of water molecules is under a pressure greater than 221 bar (1 bar = 10 Pa) and a temperature higher than 374 °C. In these conditions HjO molecules still establish (weak) H-bonds. They are surprisingly most reactive and are thus candidates to be used in industry to decompose numerous polymers and hazardous chemicals (72). It may for instance rapidly hydrolyse organic molecules without any acidification (73). Supercritical water can thus act as an effective decontamination agent, itself devoid of any toxical effect. Also, its dielectric constant can be continuously varied, as may also its density or the density of H-bonds it contains, etc. How is it so Another open question for that exceptional molecule, and certainly yet a lot of work for scientists. 

Misuse of various chemicals including industrial pesticides, toxic substances, and chemical warfare agents (CWAs) requires adequate personal protective equipment and immediate skin decontamination [151]. Since the time of World War 11, scientists have made a concerted effort to improve prophylactic and therapeutic interventions to counteract cutaneous exposure to CWAs [147]. To curtail dermal systemic exposure to environmental contaminants, most material safety data sheets (MSDSs) recommend either water rinsing or soap-and-water decontamination to remove chemicals from the skin surface [152, 153]. However, it is vital that the skin be washed in such a way that does not elicit the wash-in (W-I) effect [154], The W-1 effect is defined as an enhancement of percutaneous absorption elicited specifically by skin decontamination, particularly with water. It simply means that as some chemical contaminants are washed off the skin, the chemical substance may also wash into the skin and thus become more systemically bioavailable. 

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