Study of high explosives in soil for holding determination
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
A holding time is a regulated amount of time that a sample can be stored before analysis. The holding times that are now used for high explosives (HE) in soil and extracts are the EPA holding times set for semi-volatile organics. These holding times are 14 days at 4 C before sample extraction and 40 days before extract analysis. A previous study on Eastern U.S. soils found that actual decomposition in storage varies for different compounds and different soils, however, no studies prior to this have been performed on Los Alamos soils. The soil samples were spiked with an HE solution of HMX, RDX, TNT, TNB, 2,4-DNT, 2,6-DNT, 4-Am-2,6-DNT, 2-Am-4,6-DNT, Tetryl, NB, 1,3-DNB, 2-NT, 3-NT, and 4-NT, plus two surrogates 3,4-DNT and MNA. A total of five soil types were studied, four uncontaminated and one field contaminated. From the results of the study, it is clear that the EPA holding time now assigned to soils containing high explosives is much too long when analyzing for nitroaromatics, but sufficient when analyzing for HMX and RDX.
- OSTI ID:
- 559849
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970443--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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