Author: Emina AtikovicPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 100
Book Description
Perchlorate is an oxidizer that has been routinely used in solid rocket motors by the Department of Defense and NASA. One of the advantages of perchlorate is that it is easily washed out of old rocket motors and can be crystallized for reuse in civilian applications such as commercial fireworks and road flares. The washout operation leads to wastewater containing perchlorate because it cannot be recovered in its entirety. Royal Demolition Explosive (RDX) is a major component of military high explosives used in a large variety of munitions. It is transferred to Army industrial wastewaters during the load, assemble and pack operations for new munitions, and hot water or steam washout for disposal and deactivation of old munitions (commonly referred to as demilitarization, or simply demil). Old disposal practices for both perchlorate and RDX have lead to groundwater contaminated by both compounds; however they have never been disposed of together in the past. Biological degradation, through the use of Anaerobic Fluidized Bed Reactors (AFBR), has proven to be an effective method for the removal of both perchlorate and RDX in contaminated wastewater. The focus of this study was to determine the effectiveness of removal of perchlorate and RDX individually and when co-mingled, using ethanol as an electron donor at steady state conditions. Here three AFBRs were employed and the performance of the bioreactors was monitored by measuring the reactor effluent for perchlorate, RDX, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and volatile fatty acids (VFA), while reactor influent was monitored only for perchlorate and RDX. The experimental results demonstrated that the biodegradation of perchlorate and RDX was more effective in bioreactors receiving the single contaminant than in the bioreactor where both contaminants were fed.
