(125a) Chemical Stockpile Elimination: Mustard Strategy

The United States stockpile of chemical weapons contained GB and VX nerve agents as well as mustard blister agent stored in various quantities and configurations at nine sites (eight in the continental US). Significant progress has been made in destroying the stockpile; two of the sites have completed agent destruction. Mustard agent in both munitions and bulk storage still exists at each of the four United States baseline incineration sites currently destroying stockpile chemical weapons and agents as well as at two sites scheduled to employ non-incineration technologies. Stored mustard has degraded and contains significant amounts of solids which cannot be readily drained from the munitions. A number of the mustard munitions and containers have been found to be contaminated with mercury. These unique aspects of the mustard stockpile have created processing challenges that are being overcome with the objective to efficiently destroy the mustard stockpile in a safe and compliant manner.

The US Army has been carrying out investigations and technology development in several areas to assure successful execution of the overall strategy for mustard destruction. An overview of the US Army mustard strategy will be presented and several key areas of investigation will be highlighted along with findings and conclusions. Specific areas for presentation include:

? Chemical Stockpile Mustard Inventory- The distribution of mustard at the six sites will be described along with the selected destruction methods and their specific challenges.

? Treatment of Mustard Solids-. The results of a mustard solids research program to develop the data base for processing mustard solids at the six sites will be presented.

? Mercury-Scrubber Chemistry? All four incineration sites are equipped with a liquid scrubber pollution abatement system (PAS) designed to remove acid gases. A thorough review of mercury-scrubber chemistry is underway to determine the potential for controlling and enhancing mercury capture in the PAS.

? Performance Testing of Mercury Sorbents. A flue gas mercury abatement system based on a fixed bed adsorber will be employed for processing of high mercury mustard containers by incineration. A testing program is underway to investigate the performance of a number of sorbents (mostly carbon) under a range of potential operating conditions.