Technology may help ease VX waste concerns

Process would remove phosphates that citizens worry will pollute Delaware River

By Patricia L. Pastore/Tribune-Star

November 17, 2004

DuPont's Chambers Works Plant in New Jersey has developed a new technology that could strengthen its ability to treat VX byproduct hydrolysate.

The phosphate removal technology, developed for broad applications, may affect hydrolysate treatment if the Army awards DuPont the contract to treat 4 million gallons of VX waste neutralized at the Newport Chemical Depot.

The Army wants to neutralize VX at Newport and then truck the waste to New Jersey for treatment, but has encountered opposition from citizens in Indiana, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

East Coast residents believe the hydrolysate's phosphates EMPA and MPA would not be removed enough by treatment at the DuPont plant, according to earlier information supplied by Anthony Farina, a DuPont spokesman. Among their concerns are that DuPont's discharges will pollute the Delaware River.

"DuPont has developed phosphonate removal technology that could help address concerns raised about the quality of waterways, including the Delaware River," Farina said.

Nerve agent VX was developed and manufactured by the Army during the Cold War. The Army plans to destroy 1,269 tons of VX stored at Newport since the 1960s.

Col. Jesse L. Barber, project manager of Army's Alternative Technologies Approaches Project, has said VX disposal at Newport won't begin until the Centers for Disease Control issues a report on VX neutralization, hydrolysate treatment and its take on the transportation of the hydrolysate from Newport to New Jersey.

Parsons Technologies, the company the Army contracted to build the VX destruction facility, operate it and destroy the VX, has said it is ready to proceed with neutralization.

Two new DuPont technologies to address phosphate removal are an advanced oxidation pre-treatment and a biological treatment, said Todd Owens, a DuPont chemical engineer.

He said in the oxidation treatment, EMPA is converted to MPA and then the MPA is removed by chemical precipitation. The wastewater, Farina said, then would be discharged as effluent into the Delaware River under the New Jersey permits issued by the state. The MPA solids, removed by precipitation, would be taken to a permitted landfill.

The oxidation method has been used by DuPont to treat the hydrolysate of mustard agent, a chemical weapon, stored and neutralized at Aberdeen, Md., Owens said.

"Oxidation converts organics to a simpler organic and breaks a complex molecule into something more easily treated, Owens said. "Then this process is combined with chemical precipitation -- where phosphonates are removed and separated."

The biological route is a biodegradable method of removing the phosphate using an isolated strain of bacteria, Owens said. He said research is ongoing at the Chambers Works bio-plant.

"If we are able to apply the new technologies to the Newport project, the technology is pretty promising," Owens said. Treatability studies are under way to determine if the new technology is effective on a large scale. The studies are expected to be completed by January, he said.

DuPont already has applied for patents for the new technology, and expects to seek additional patents later this year, Farina said.

Patricia Pastore can be reached at (812)231-4271 or pat.pastore@tribstar.com.