Sponsor:

U.S. Army Defense Ammunition Center

Research Team:

James Harmon

Universities Involved:

Oklahoma State University

Start Date:

12/18/04

End Date:

12/17/07

Summary:

This project introduced photocatalysts to address the problem of there being tons of obsolete discarded unusable conventional explosives (TNT, etc), rocket motors, warheads, shell propellants, etc in the continental US that are in storage awaiting destruction. The prject shows the advantages of using photocatalysts
The goal of this work is to devise and understand a continuous-feed on-line solar-powered process for the destruction of energetic and hazardous materials. The final end-product is mobile flatbed or flat-car based solar unit to process energetic materials on-site without that logistics processes that transport the chemicals to a facility. This represents a mobile processing plant whose operation is on-demand in terms of time and location. This eliminates the need for the reverse logistics process of transporting hazardous materials over commercial public rails and highways; elimination of the hazard of truck and rail logistics also eliminates the potential of environmental disasters associated with those logistics processes.