In the event of a terrorist attack with chemical or biological (CB) agents, large quantities of waste materials, both indoor and outdoor, may be treated using thermal incineration during the site remediation process.  CB agents in general are not particularly thermally stable; chemical agents decompose readily while bacteria/viruses cannot survive in a high temperature combustion environment.  Potential difficulties exist, however, in thermally processing waste materials generated during a CB contamination incident site remediation due to the refractory nature of many materials found inside and outside buildings, and the potential impacts that waste packaging at the remediation site may have on the behavior of these materials and residual agent destruction in combustion systems.  This presentation reports on efforts to examine the thermal decomposition of CB agents bound in a variety of model building materials, when processed through several different incinerator designs.

Use of modeling to evaluate incineration of building decontamination waste from homeland security incidents

247th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.