Analytical Chemistry Associated With The Destruction Of Chemical Weapons

One of the major problems associated with the disposal of chemical weapons is that the agents have degraded over time, some quite seriously. Detecting and identifying the products of this decomposition are necessary prerequisites to the safe, complete and environmentally benign destruction of stockpiled weapons. The book presents and discusses both basic and novel techniques in a variety of areas of analytical chemistry which are relevant to achieving the ultimate destruction of chemical weapons. Presentations address sample collection and preparation, mass spectrometry, chromatographic techniques, NMR, and air monitoring techniques. The work shows that analytical methods do exist to effectively support the destruction of chemical munitions. While further research is needed, the book provides an excellent baseline for further advances in the field.

"" ... this book would be a significant addition to collections serving analytical and environmental chemistry research and teaching, as well as to ... those interested in weapons proliferation issues."" (E-STREAMS, June 2006).

1 2 Prof. Dr. Vladimir Mikhailovitsh Kolodkin , Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Ruck 1 Institute of Natural and Technogenic Disasters, Udmurt State University, Izhevsk (Russia), 2 Institute of Ecology and Environmental Chemistry, University Lüneburg (Germany) During the Cold War a whole arsenal of deadly chemical weapons was allowed to build up on both sides of the ideological divide. Happily, today the problems are reversed. Expertise is now required in the field of safe and environment-friendly disposal of chemical weapons and cleaning up of contaminated sites all around the world, but not least in the ex-Soviet-led countries. The participants and speakers to the NATO-Russia advanced research workshop on the “Ecological Risks Associated with the Destruction of nd th Chemical Weapons”, hosted by the University of Lüneburg on 22 - 26 October, 2003, therefore, came from many different parts of the world. Of the eight countries represented at the workshop, two were ex-Eastern- Block, and six were Western countries. Yet the West was by no means overrepresented. On the contrary, the Russian expert-speaker contingent, with 33 participants, did justice to the size of their country – and to their chemical-weapons problem – and provided the majority of active participants. In all, there were 57 participants, of which 11 dispatched from the TACIS project “The development of the chemical weapons” facility at the detached plant No 4 of OAO Khimprom, Novocheboksarsk.

1 2 Prof. Dr. Vladimir Mikhailovitsh Kolodkin , Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Ruck 1 Institute of Natural and Technogenic Disasters, Udmurt State University, Izhevsk (Russia), 2 Institute of Ecology and Environmental Chemistry, University Lüneburg (Germany) During the Cold War a whole arsenal of deadly chemical weapons was allowed to build up on both sides of the ideological divide. Happily, today the problems are reversed. Expertise is now required in the field of safe and environment-friendly disposal of chemical weapons and cleaning up of contaminated sites all around the world, but not least in the ex-Soviet-led countries. The participants and speakers to the NATO-Russia advanced research workshop on the “Ecological Risks Associated with the Destruction of nd th Chemical Weapons”, hosted by the University of Lüneburg on 22 - 26 October, 2003, therefore, came from many different parts of the world. Of the eight countries represented at the workshop, two were ex-Eastern- Block, and six were Western countries. Yet the West was by no means overrepresented. On the contrary, the Russian expert-speaker contingent, with 33 participants, did justice to the size of their country – and to their chemical-weapons problem – and provided the majority of active participants. In all, there were 57 participants, of which 11 dispatched from the TACIS project “The development of the chemical weapons” facility at the detached plant No 4 of OAO Khimprom, Novocheboksarsk.

January 2012 saw the completion of the U.S. Army's Chemical Materials Agency's (CMA's) task to destroy 90 percent of the nation's stockpile of chemical weapons. CMA completed destruction of the chemical agents and associated weapons deployed overseas, which were transported to Johnston Atoll, southwest of Hawaii, and demilitarized there. The remaining 10 percent of the nation's chemical weapons stockpile is stored at two continental U.S. depots, in Lexington, Kentucky, and Pueblo, Colorado. Their destruction has been assigned to a separate U.S. Army organization, the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) Element. ACWA is currently constructing the last two chemical weapons disposal facilities, the Pueblo and Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plants (denoted PCAPP and BGCAPP), with weapons destruction activities scheduled to start in 2015 and 2020, respectively. ACWA is charged with destroying the mustard agent stockpile at Pueblo and the nerve and mustard agent stockpile at Blue Grass without using the multiple incinerators and furnaces used at the five CMA demilitarization plants that dealt with assembled chemical weapons - munitions containing both chemical agents and explosive/propulsive components. The two ACWA demilitarization facilities are congressionally mandated to employ noncombustion-based chemical neutralization processes to destroy chemical agents. In order to safely operate its disposal plants, CMA developed methods and procedures to monitor chemical agent contamination of both secondary waste materials and plant structural components. ACWA currently plans to adopt these methods and procedures for use at these facilities. The Assessment of Agent Monitoring Strategies for the Blue Grass and Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plants report also develops and describes a half-dozen scenarios involving prospective ACWA secondary waste characterization, process equipment maintenance and changeover activities, and closure agent decontamination challenges, where direct, real-time agent contamination measurements on surfaces or in porous bulk materials might allow more efficient and possibly safer operations if suitable analytical technology is available and affordable.

The Program Manager for Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment (PMACWA) of the Department of Defense (DOD) requested the National Research Council (NRC) to assess the engineering design studies (EDSs) developed by Parsons/Honeywell and General Atomics for a chemical demilitarization facility to completely dispose of the assembled chemical weapons at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Pueblo, Colorado. To accomplish the task, the NRC formed the Committee on Review and Evaluation of Alternative Technologies for Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons: Phase II (ACW II Committee). This report presents the results of the committee's scientific and technical assessment, which will assist the Office of the Secretary of Defense in selecting the technology package for destroying the chemical munitions at Pueblo. The committee evaluated the engineering design packages proposed by the technology providers and the associated experimental studies that were performed to validate unproven unit operations. A significant part of the testing program involved expanding the technology base for the hydrolysis of energetic materials associated with assembled weapons. This process was a concern expressed by the Committee on Review and Evaluation of Alternative Technologies for Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons (ACW I Committee) in its original report in 1999 (NRC, 1999). The present study took place as the experimental studies were in progress. In some cases, tests for some of the supporting unit operations were not completed in time for the committee to incorporate results into its evaluation. In those cases, the committee identified and discussed potential problem areas in these operations. Based on its expertise and its aggressive data-gathering activities, the committee was able to conduct a comprehensive review of the test data that had been completed for the overall system design. This report summarizes the study.

This report examines seven disposal technologies being considered by the U.S. government as alternative methods to the process of incineration for destroying mortars, rockets, land mines, and other weapons that contain chemical warfare agents, such as mustard gas. These weapons are considered especially dangerous because they contain both chemical warfare agent and explosive materials in an assembled package that must be disassembled for destruction. The study identifies the strengths and weaknesses and advantages and disadvantages of each technology and assesses their potential for full-scale implementation.