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RDX (abbreviation of "Research Department eXplosive") or hexogen, among other names, is an organic compound with the formula (O2N2CH2)3. It is white, odorless and tasteless, widely used as an explosive. Chemically, it is classified as a nitroamine alongside HMX, which is a more energetic explosive than TNT. It was used widely in World War II and remains common in military applications.
Trinitrotoluene, more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H2(NO2)3CH3. TNT is occasionally used as a reagent in chemical synthesis, but it is best known as an explosive material with convenient handling properties. The explosive yield of TNT is considered to be the standard comparative convention of bombs and asteroid impacts. In chemistry, TNT is used to generate charge transfer salts.
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 1979 and internationally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001. They are organic chlorine compounds with the formula C12H10−xClx; they were once widely used in the manufacture of carbonless copy paper, as heat transfer fluids, and as dielectric and coolant fluids for electrical equipment.
Ammonium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula NH4NO3. It is a white crystalline salt consisting of ions of ammonium and nitrate. It is highly soluble in water and hygroscopic as a solid, although it does not form hydrates. It is predominantly used in agriculture as a high-nitrogen fertilizer. Global production was estimated at 21.6 million tonnes in 2017.
Environmental remediation deals with the removal of pollution or contaminants from environmental media such as soil, groundwater, sediment, or surface water. Remedial action is generally subject to an array of regulatory requirements, and may also be based on assessments of human health and ecological risks where no legislative standards exist, or where standards are advisory.
Bioremediation broadly refers to any process wherein a biological system, living or dead, is employed for removing environmental pollutants from air, water, soil, flue gasses, industrial effluents etc., in natural or artificial settings. The natural ability of organisms to adsorb, accumulate, and degrade common and emerging pollutants has attracted the use of biological resources in treatment of contaminated environment. In comparison to conventional physicochemical treatment methods bioremediation may offer considerable advantages as it aims to be sustainable, eco-friendly, cheap, and scalable. Most bioremediation is inadvertent, involving native organisms. Research on bioremediation is heavily focused on stimulating the process by inoculation of a polluted site with organisms or supplying nutrients to promote the growth. In principle, bioremediation could be used to reduce the impact of byproducts created from anthropogenic activities, such as industrialization and agricultural processes. Bioremediation could prove less expensive and more sustainable than other remediation alternatives.
Phytoremediation technologies use living plants to clean up soil, air and water contaminated with hazardous contaminants. It is defined as "the use of green plants and the associated microorganisms, along with proper soil amendments and agronomic techniques to either contain, remove or render toxic environmental contaminants harmless". The term is an amalgam of the Greek phyto (plant) and Latin remedium. Although attractive for its cost, phytoremediation has not been demonstrated to redress any significant environmental challenge to the extent that contaminated space has been reclaimed.
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TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The ton of TNT is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be 4.184 gigajoules, which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a metric ton of TNT. In other words, for each gram of TNT exploded, 4.184 kilojoules of energy are released.
Weldon Spring Ordnance Works (WSOW) was a 17,323-acre (70.10 km2) U.S. Government-owned, contractor-operated (GOCO) facility in St. Charles County, Missouri, 55 km west of St. Louis. The site was originally operated by the Atlas Powder Company during World War II from 1941 to 1945 to produce explosives. The Atomic Energy Commission acquired part of the property in 1955, and Mallinckrodt, Inc. processed uranium ore from 1957 to 1966 under contract. The site has been divided into several parcels, and ownership has transferred over the years. Two portions of the original WSOW property are now Superfund sites that require substantial cleanup efforts. The environmental remediation of the WSOW site is currently designated as a major project of the Defense Environmental Restoration Program of the United States Department of Defense. Part of the original property is still used by the Army Reserve as the Weldon Spring Training Area.
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Since the mid-20th century, plutonium in the environment has been primarily produced by human activity. The first plants to produce plutonium for use in cold war atomic bombs were at the Hanford nuclear site, in Washington, and Mayak nuclear plant, in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. Over a period of four decades, "both released more than 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment – twice the amount expelled in the Chernobyl disaster in each instance".
The environment of Russia
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The Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant, formerly known as the Louisiana Ordnance Plant or as The Shell Plant, is an inactive 14,974-acre (60.60 km2) plant to load, assemble and pack ammunitions items. During production from 1942 to 1994, the Army disposed of untreated explosives-laden wastewater in on-site lagoons, contaminating soil, sediments and groundwater with hazardous chemicals. It is a government-owned, contractor-operated facility located off U.S. Highway 80 in Webster Parish near Doyline between Minden and Bossier City, Louisiana. Part of LAAP is known as Camp Minden, a training center for the Louisiana Army National Guard. LAAP and Camp Minden have become nearly interchangeable terms, with most references to Camp Minden.
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Pollution-induced community tolerance (PICT) is an approach to measuring the response of pollution-induced selective pressures on a community. It is an eco-toxicological tool that approaches community tolerance to pollution from a holistic standpoint. Community Tolerance can increase in one of three ways: physical adaptations or phenotypic plasticity, selection of favorable genotypes, and the replacement of sensitive species by tolerant species in a community.
Persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances (PBTs) are a class of compounds that have high resistance to degradation from abiotic and biotic factors, high mobility in the environment and high toxicity. Because of these factors PBTs have been observed to have a high order of bioaccumulation and biomagnification, very long retention times in various media, and widespread distribution across the globe. Most PBTs in the environment are either created through industry or are unintentional byproducts.
The Nebraska Ordnance Plant is a former United States Army ammunition plant located approximately ½ mile south of Mead, Nebraska and 30 miles west of Omaha, Nebraska in Saunders County. It originally extended across 17,250 acres (69.8 km2) producing weapons from 1942-45 after which the Army used it as a bomb factory during the Vietnam War. Environmental investigations in the 1980's found the soil and groundwater contaminated with the explosive RDX and the degreaser trichloroethylene. In 1990, federal agencies added the site to the National Priorities List as a Superfund site. Remediation included soil excavation and water treatment, the latter of which has been ongoing since 1997. Water is contained and treated at 4 treatment plants and the known plumes are monitored at hundreds of wells. The latest wells, dug deeper into the bedrock than previously, showed RDX and TCE above desired action levels in April 2016.
References
- ↑ Pennington JC, Brannon JM (February 2002). "Environmental fate of explosives". Thermochimica Acta. 384 (1–2): 163–172. doi:10.1016/S0040-6031(01)00801-2.
- 1 2 3 Juhasz AL, Naidu R (2007). "Explosives: fate, dynamics, and ecological impact in terrestrial and marine environments". Rev Environ Contam Toxicol. Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. 191: 163–215. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-69163-3_6. ISBN 978-0-387-69162-6. PMID 17708075.
- ↑ Kalderis D, Juhasz AL, Boopathy R, Comfort S (2011). "Soils contaminated with explosives: Environmental fate and evaluation of state-of-the-art remediation processes (IUPAC Technical Report)". Pure and Applied Chemistry. 83 (7): 1407–1484. doi: 10.1351/PAC-REP-10-01-05 .
- 1 2 Burrows EP, Rosenblatt DH, Mitchell WR, Parmer DL (1989). "Organic Explosives and Related Compounds: Environmental and Health Considerations" (PDF). Technical Report: US Army Biomedical Research and Development Laboratory. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 26, 2014.
- 1 2 Ayoub K, van Hullebusch ED, Cassir M, Bermond A (2010). "Application of advanced oxidation processes for TNT removal: A review". J. Hazard. Mater. 178 (1–3): 10–28. doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2010.02.042. PMID 20347218.
- ↑ Kramer D (2004). "Explosives" (PDF). U.S. Geological Survey Minerals Yearbook: 24.1–24.6.
- ↑ "Chemical Industries Newsletter". IHS Global Inc. 2009.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ↑ Esteve-Núñez A, Caballero A, Ramos JL (2001). "Biological degradation of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene". Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 65 (3): 335–52, table of contents. doi:10.1128/MMBR.65.3.335-352.2001. PMC 99030 . PMID 11527999.
