Product type | Decontaminant |
---|---|
Owner | CBI Polymers |
Country | Honolulu, Hawaii, United States |
Introduced | September 23, 2011 |
Website | www |
DeconGel is a gel created by CBI Polymers INC used to clean up after chemical and nuclear disasters. [1] The product has been tested by numerous agencies and organizations in Japan including first responders, nuclear power plant operators, and private companies.
DeconGel was created by CBI Polymers INC in Honolulu, Hawaii in June 2011. [2] Since then it has been used commercially to clean up chemicals and nuclear waste. Most notably being in Japan after the Fukushima nuclear disaster after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami compromised reactors and cooling baths at TEPCO’s Daiichi Nuclear Power Station left high levels of radiation on the Asahimachi Baptist School Building. [3]
While CBI Polymers has kept the full formulation a secret, The formula is a mix of Surfactants, Chelates, Thixotropy, Wetting Agents, Defoamer, Biocides and Buffers. [4]
DeconGel is currently active in 3 different formulas
DeconGel can encapsulate most radioactive isotopes such as H-3, C-14, F-18, I-125, I-131, Tc-99, TI-201, Tritiated-Thymadine and Transuranics such as Am-241, Pu-238, Pu-239, Pu-240, Pu-241, Pu-242, Cs-137, Cs-134, Co-60, Mn-54, Fe-55, Ni-63, Ni-59, Sr-90 and Co-58 as well as most Toxic Industrial Chemical and Materials such as Meth lab wastes, Asbestos, PCB, Crude Oil, Antimony, Arsenic, Barium, Beryllium, Cadmium, Chromium, Cobalt, Copper, Lead, Nickel, Selenium, Silver, Zinc, and Molybdenum. [2]
DeconGel has special properties that “wet out” a surface allowing the gel to penetrate into contiguous pores. Often contamination is considered “fixed” when in fact the contaminants are actually “loose” but trapped within pores, unable to be removed via common decontamination techniques. DeconGel can get within these pores and remove these contaminants making it appear that DeconGel has actually penetrated the substrate. [2]
DeconGel can be applied by brush, trowel (small hand-held or large stand-up trowel) or sprayer (sprayer and/or product may need to be modified to work). For small surface areas a paint brush, a small trowel or a hand-held sprayer can be used. For large complex surfaces, an industrial type sprayer may be more practical. For large horizontal surfaces, either a sprayer or a stand-up trowel may be used. [2]
When spraying DeconGel, multiple coats may be needed before peeling the gel from the surface. The thicker the dried gel is, the easier it is to remove from the surface. [2]
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds, formerly used in industrial and consumer products, whose production was banned in the United States by the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976 and internationally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001.
Environmental remediation is the cleanup of hazardous substances dealing with the removal, treatment and containment of pollution or contaminants from environmental media such as soil, groundwater, sediment. Remediation may be required by regulations before development of land revitalization projects. Developers who agree to voluntary cleanup may be offered incentives under state or municipal programs like New York State's Brownfield Cleanup Program. If remediation is done by removal the waste materials are simply transported off-site for disposal at another location. The waste material can also be contained by physical barriers like slurry walls. The use of slurry walls is well-established in the construction industry. The application of (low) pressure grouting, used to mitigate soil liquefaction risks in San Francisco and other earthquake zones, has achieved mixed results in field tests to create barriers, and site-specific results depend upon many variable conditions that can greatly impact outcomes.
Riot control measures are used by law enforcement, military, paramilitary or security forces to control, disperse, and arrest people who are involved in a riot, unlawful demonstration or unlawful protest.
Spray painting is a painting technique in which a device sprays coating material through the air onto a surface. The most common types employ compressed gas—usually air—to atomize and direct the paint particles.
Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases, where their presence is unintended or undesirable.
Human decontamination is the process of removing hazardous materials from the human body, including chemicals, radioactive substances, and infectious material.
Mass decontamination is the decontamination of large numbers of people, in the event of industrial, accidental, or intentional contamination by toxic, infective, caustic, polluted, or otherwise unhealthful or damaging substances.
Decontamination foam is a spray-on cleaning solution used on surfaces that have been contaminated with biological or chemical agents. Decon foam has been found to make numerous chemical and biological agents harmless. It is also intended for use in areas where large numbers of people have possibly been contaminated.
An ion-exchange resin or ion-exchange polymer is a resin or polymer that acts as a medium for ion exchange. It is an insoluble matrix normally in the form of small microbeads, usually white or yellowish, fabricated from an organic polymer substrate. The beads are typically porous, providing a large surface area on and inside them where the trapping of ions occurs along with the accompanying release of other ions, and thus the process is called ion exchange. There are multiple types of ion-exchange resin. Most commercial resins are made of polystyrene sulfonate, followed up by polyacrylate.
Ion exchange is a reversible interchange of one species of ion present in an insoluble solid with another of like charge present in a solution surrounding the solid. Ion exchange is used in softening or demineralizing of water, purification of chemicals, and separation of substances.
A fire retardant is a substance that is used to slow down or stop the spread of fire or reduce its intensity. This is commonly accomplished by chemical reactions that reduce the flammability of fuels or delay their combustion. Fire retardants may also cool the fuel through physical action or endothermic chemical reactions. Fire retardants are available as powder, to be mixed with water, as fire-fighting foams and fire-retardant gels. Fire retardants are also available as coatings or sprays to be applied to an object.
Caesium-137, cesium-137 (US), or radiocaesium, is a radioactive isotope of caesium that is formed as one of the more common fission products by the nuclear fission of uranium-235 and other fissionable isotopes in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Trace quantities also originate from spontaneous fission of uranium-238. It is among the most problematic of the short-to-medium-lifetime fission products. Caesium-137 has a relatively low boiling point of 671 °C (1,240 °F) and easily becomes volatile when released suddenly at high temperature, as in the case of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and with atomic explosions, and can travel very long distances in the air. After being deposited onto the soil as radioactive fallout, it moves and spreads easily in the environment because of the high water solubility of caesium's most common chemical compounds, which are salts. Caesium-137 was discovered by Glenn T. Seaborg and Margaret Melhase.
Soil contamination, soil pollution, or land pollution as a part of land degradation is caused by the presence of xenobiotic (human-made) chemicals or other alteration in the natural soil environment. It is typically caused by industrial activity, agricultural chemicals or improper disposal of waste. The most common chemicals involved are petroleum hydrocarbons, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, solvents, pesticides, lead, and other heavy metals. Contamination is correlated with the degree of industrialization and intensity of chemical substance. The concern over soil contamination stems primarily from health risks, from direct contact with the contaminated soil, vapour from the contaminants, or from secondary contamination of water supplies within and underlying the soil. Mapping of contaminated soil sites and the resulting clean ups are time-consuming and expensive tasks, and require expertise in geology, hydrology, chemistry, computer modelling, and GIS in Environmental Contamination, as well as an appreciation of the history of industrial chemistry.
Conformal coating is a protective, breathable coating of thin polymeric film applied to printed circuit boards (PCBs). Conformal coatings are typically applied at 25–250 μm to the electronic circuitry and provide protection against moisture and other harsher conditions.
Environmental radioactivity is not limited to actinides; non-actinides such as radon and radium are of note. While all actinides are radioactive, there are a lot of actinides or actinide-relating minerals in the Earth's crust such as uranium and thorium. These minerals are helpful in many ways, such as carbon-dating, most detectors, X-rays, and more.
This list covers hyperaccumulators, plant species which accumulate, or are tolerant of radionuclides, hydrocarbons and organic solvents, and inorganic solvents.
Green nanotechnology refers to the use of nanotechnology to enhance the environmental sustainability of processes producing negative externalities. It also refers to the use of the products of nanotechnology to enhance sustainability. It includes making green nano-products and using nano-products in support of sustainability.
The Fukushima disaster cleanup is an ongoing attempt to limit radioactive contamination from the three nuclear reactors involved in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster that followed the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011. The affected reactors were adjacent to one another and accident management was made much more difficult because of the number of simultaneous hazards concentrated in a small area. Failure of emergency power following the tsunami resulted in loss of coolant from each reactor, hydrogen explosions damaging the reactor buildings, and water draining from open-air spent fuel pools. Plant workers were put in the position of trying to cope simultaneously with core meltdowns at three reactors and exposed fuel pools at three units.
The Grand Calumet River is a 13.0-mile-long (20.9 km) river that flows primarily into Lake Michigan. Originating in Miller Beach in Gary, it flows through the cities of Gary, East Chicago and Hammond, as well as Calumet City and Burnham on the Illinois side. The majority of the river's flow drains into Lake Michigan via the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal, sending about 1,500 cubic feet (42 m3) per second of water into the lake. A smaller part of the flow, at the river's western end, enters the Calumet River, and through the Illinois ultimately drains into the Mississippi River.
SPMDs, or semipermeable membrane devices, are a passive sampling device used to monitor trace levels of organic compounds with a log Kow > 3. SPMDs are an effective way of monitoring the concentrations of chemicals from anthropogenic runoff and pollution in the marine environment because of their ability to detect minuscule levels of chemical. The data collected from a passive sampler is important for examining the amount of chemical in the environment and can therefore be used to formulate other scientific research about the effects of those chemicals on the organisms as well as the environment. Examples of commonly measured chemicals using SPMDs include: PAHs, PCBs, PBDEs, dioxins and furans as well as hydrophobic waste-water effluents like fragrances, triclosan and phthalates.