Base Catalyzed Decomposition - new hydrogen donors and reaction activators/catalysts
- Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH (United States)
A significant challenge today is the need to develop a fast and complete detoxification process suitable for the destruction of polychloro biphenyl (PCBs) and all those chlorinated organic compounds lying as waste in soils, sediments, water, air and concentrates in waste dumps. The Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratory (RREL) at the EPA in Cincinnati, Ohio, confirmed in January 1989, that a chemical reaction conducted under basic conditions completely removed covalently bound chlorine from a variety of organic compounds. This reaction was referred to as Base Catalyzed Decomposition (BCD). BCD chemistry has repeatedly demonstrated that it can destroy up to 100,000 ppm of PCBs in dielectric fluids and can also destroy these materials in the lower concentrations found with fluids in a soil matrix. The treatment is similar to the above with variation. (An account of substitution processes at low and high temperatures, can be found in the monograph on innovative site remediation technology). The present Base Catalyzed Decomposition (BCD) process under prescribed conditions of two hours of heating and stirring at 340{degrees}C will hydrodechlorinate Aroclor 1242 to the extent of 97 to 99%. An investigation was undertaken of products and the yield of biphenyl from the dechlorination of PCBs resulting from the BCD reaction.
- OSTI ID:
- 111504
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9504110--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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