Military waste

Keywords precautionary measures, chemical terrorism, chemical enterprises, abandoned military wastes, and disaster preparation... 

Use of hazardous chemical waste, including abandoned pesticides and military wastes. 

Common hazardous wastes include (a) waste oil, (b) solvents and thinners, (c) acids and bases/alkalines, (d) toxic or flammable paint wastes, (e) nitrates, perchlorates, and peroxides, (f) abandoned or used pesticides, and (g) some wastewater treatment sludges. Special hazardous wastes include (a) industrial wastes containing the USEPA priority pollutants, (b) infectious medical wastes, (c) explosive military wastes, and (d) radioactive wastes or releases. 

Weatherly, Inc., developed the first commercial SCWO system for Huntsman Corporation. The Huntsman facility in Austin, Texas, uses the SCWO technology to treat process and wastewater formerly disposed of by incineration. Weatherly, Inc., and the University of Texas at Austin have also studied the application of SCWO to contaminated soils, domestic wastes, mixed wastes, and military wastes. 

Through 1977, approximately 1,306,000 cubic meters (J ) of military waste material had been buried in approximately 280 hectares at the DOE sites. The rate of accumulation at these sites has remained relatively constant and is now approximately 33,000 cubic meters per year. Through 1977, approximately 500,000 cubic meters of waste had been buried in 300 hectares at the six commercial sites ( 2) The present annual rate of burial is approximately 60,000 cubic meters ( 3) and is increasing rapidly... 

High-Level Waste. There are approximately 285 million liters containing approximately 590 x 10 curies ( ) of military and 2.3 million liters of commercial high-level liquid waste (O presently stored in tanks. Although the volume of high-level military waste is much greater, the curie content of strontium 90 of both sources is approximately the same if stored spent fuel rods from commercial reactors are included in the inventory. The total curie content will be the same for both sources by 1985 at the present rate of use ( ). To date, there has been no disposal of any high-level waste. 

The radioactive wastes associated with nuclear reactors fall into two categories (1) commercial wastes — the result of operating nuclear-powered electric generating facilities and (2) military wastes—the result of reactor operations associated with weapons manufacture, Because the fuel in plutonium production reactors, as required by weapons, is irradiated less than the fuel in commercial power reactors, the military wastes contain fewer fission products and thus are not as active radiologically or thermally. They are nevertheless hazardous and require careful disposal. 

Nuclear power plants use fuel rods with a life span of about three years. Each year, roughly one-third of spent fuel rods are removed and stored in cooling basins, either at the reactor site or elsewhere. Typical modern nuclear power plants discharge about 30 tons of the spent fuel per reactor per year. Comparatively little of Lite radioactive wastes, as is currently reliably known worldwide, has been processed for return to the fuel cycle. Actually, fuel reprocessing causes a net increase in the volume of radioactive wastes, but, as in the ease of military wastes, they are less hazardous in the long term. Nevertheless, the wastes from reprocessing also must be disposed of with great care. 

California 13.400-19.000 Saltwater intrusion nitrates from agriculture, brines and other industrial and military wastes... 

Interference from Reactor Corrosion. Pilot SCWO treatment systems constructed for disposal of both civilian and military wastes perform extremely well in destroying hydrocarbons. However, most hazardous wastes contain additional components that pose direct or indirect barriers to the... 

SCWO is among the best technologies available today for efficient and environmentally sound disposal of both civilian and military waste. Scale-up demonstrations for development of this process have been explored around the world for a variety of waste-disposal applications (e.g., municipal waste). 

Downey KW, Snow RH, Hazlebeck DA, Roberts AJ. Corrosion and chemical agent destruction, research on supercritical waste oxidation of hazardous military waste. Innovations in Supercritical Fluids, Chapter 21. Washington, D.C. American Chemical Society, 1995. 

To avoid proliferation, fissile material such as plutonium should never ac-cmnulate in large amounts or should be difficult to separate from the stream of spent fuel. This can be addressed by using accelerators to produce fissile material at the same pace as it is used to produce energy. Accelerators are also among the options for "incineration" of ciurent nuclear and military waste, in order to reduce waste storage time and again avoid storage of waste from which weapons material could be extracted. 

Most research work on the use of supercritical water has been conducted batchwise and involved non-analytical determinative applications. Thus, supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) was proposed as an alternative treatment for hazardous waste disposal [191] and also as a commercial tool for decomposing trichloroethylene, dimethyl sulphoxide and isopropyl alcohol on a pilot plant scale [192]. Current commercially available equipment (the aqua Critox" system) is usable with industrial and municipal sludge, mixed (radioactive and organic, liquid and solid) waste and military waste. This commercially available treatment has a number of advantages, namely (a) because it uses an on-site treatment method, it avoids the need to transport hazardous materials (b) it ensures complete destruction of organic wastes and allows reuse of the effluent as process water with results that meet the regulations for drinking water and (c) no licence for effluent or air emissions is needed. 

Letzel S et al., Exposure to nitroaromatic explosives and health effects during disposal of military waste, Occup. Environ. Med., 60,483, 2003. 

The French AVM process. The French vitrification process at Marcoule is the first one in the world that is now effectively operating on a routine industrial basis after an exceptionally smooth period of test operation. With a team of 21 workers distributed among six shifts, AVM (Atelier de Vitrification de Marcoule) is operated continuously and produces one 150-liter glass block per day. It is used to solidify the backlog of military waste and future waste from natural uranium fuel produced at Marcoule. 

At 600 °C and 34.5 MPa, glucose and other feeds at concentrations of up to about 0.2 mole were gasified completely to a hydrogen-rich gas. Coke or tar formation was not observed. Military wastes were also completely gasified under these conditions. This process is possible because biomass is much more reactive in sew than coke. 

Zeff, Purification of Military Waste Waters with Ozone and Ultraviolet , AnDefPrepAssn 7th Annual Symp on Environmental Res, Edgewood Ars (Sept 1976) 90) L.A. Kaplan et al, paper... 

Keywords military waste nitroaromatics TNT degradation products carcinogenicity Soxhlet choice of column ECD PID chemical ionization PAHs water Cl... 

In the past, little attention was paid to the ecological consequences of rearmament and disarmament. Only frequently has the problem of military waste become a topic in residue analysis. The combined consequences of two world wars have not been considered for a long time and current political changes are leading to new types of contamination which will require analytical solutions within the framework of demilitarization. This overall area will also therefore increase in importance in the future in the field of analysis. 

The analysis of nitroaromatics and their metabolites is of particular importance in the assessment of military waste. Fourteen by-products and degradation products of 2,4,6-TNT (trinitrotoluene) alone are definitely classified or suspected as carcinogens (Table 4.56). 

Sample material Soil, environmental armament contaminations, military waste... 

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