Oxidation catalysts warfare agents

As discussed in a previous section, metal oxides represent an important class of materials exhibiting a broad range of properties from insulators to semiconductors and conductors and have found applications as diverse as electronics, cosmetics and catalysts. Metal oxides have been widely used in many valuable heterogeneous catalytic reactions. Typical metal oxide-catalyzed reactions, including alkane oxidation, biodiesel production, methanol adsorption and decomposition, destructive adsorption of chlorocarbons and warfare agents, olefin metathesis and the Claisen-Schmidt condensation will be briefly discussed as examples of metal oxide-catalyzed reactions. 

Inorganic oxides are currently being considered as reactive sorbents for the decontaminantion of chemical warfare agents (CWA). These versatile materials, well-known for their industrial uses as adsorbents, catalysts and catalyst supports, have many potential decontamination applications such as environmentally-friendly hasty decontamination on the battlefield, protective filtration systems for vehicles, aircraft and buildings, and the demilitarization of CWA munitions and stockpiles. To stress the enormity of the latter problem, the US and Russia have declared CWA stoclqriles of 25,000 and 42,000 tons, respectively." ... 

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