Laboratory Study on Feasibility of Munitions Wastewater Treatment by Adsorption-Oxidation,
Abstract
A laboratory study has been conducted on the feasibility of munitions wastewater treatment for the removal of TNT, RDX, and HMX, by adsorption-oxidation. Adsorption and ozonation experiments were also conducted to provide a comparison with adsorption-oxidation. All experiments were conducted on synthesized single-component and binary solutions of the three materials in tap water and using continuous flow experiments. Results show that adsorption-oxidation provides a substantially improved performance over adsorption for pure TNT solutions. Under the experimental conditions in this study, ozonation is seen to be quite ineffective in treating munitions waste. Reactivity of the wastewater with ozone which depends on its chemical characteristics and composition is seen to be a key factor in this study in achieving the adsorption-oxidation effect. For RDX, HMX, and the binary mixtures tested in this study, adsorption-oxidation effect is only marginal. A method has been discussed which demonstrates the potential for increasing the adsorption-oxidation effect severalfold for all the three materials tested. The overall results of this study clearly show that the adsorption-oxidation process can provide better treatment of munitions waste in a most cost-effective manner than is achievable by currently available traditional methods such as adsorption, incineration, and biological methods.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 31, 1976
- Accession Number
- ADA020743
Entities
People
- K. K. Jain
Organizations
- General Electric