Safety Evaluation of Nitric Acid Reactions with Polysaccharides
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
The hazards of polysaccharides in a transuranic (TRU) waste drum exposed to nitric acid (HNO3) and metal nitrate salts have been evaluated, based on considerations of how complex nitrogen redox cycles carry out the aqueous phase oxidation of alcohols and related organic functional groups. Of particular emphasis is how these exothermic reactions, coupled with a positive feedback loop inherent to nitrogen redox chemistry, can initiate an autocatalytic thermal runaway and explosive gas generation. This poses the most significant hazard for a TRU waste drum under ambient conditions where acidic solution may be present, either in small quantities as free liquid or sorbed within a solid matrix. Regarding specific mechanistic details, nitric acid is an extremely potent oxidant but is remarkably inert, rarely interacting directly with oxidizable substrates, instead exerting its vast potential energy through lower oxidation state reactants such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and nitrous acid (HNO2). These lower oxidation states of nitrogen are generated from the slow self-decomposition of nitric acid, as a result of which oxidation reactions involving nitric acid that have not been preloaded with these reactants commonly experience a quiescent induction period. It is the end of this induction period when exothermic reactivity increases rapidly that the system is most vulnerable to autocatalytic thermal runaway. Metal nitrate salts promote this ambient temperature solution chemistry (cf. traditional oxidizer properties of metal nitrate salts, which operate in the solid state at elevated temperatures) by releasing nitric acid into the system.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- 89233218CNA000001
- OSTI ID:
- 1493011
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-19-20508
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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