Hydrothermal treatment of C-N-O-H wastes: Reaction kinetics and pathways for hydrolysis products of high explosives

Bench-scale studies demonstrated the efficacy of hydrothermal oxidation for the treatment of wastes derived from the alkaline hydrolysis of the high e xplosive PBX 9404 (94% HMX, 3% nitrocellulose, and 3% chloroethyl phosphate ). Specifically, chemical kinetics studies were used to deduce major global reaction pathways, End to develop a kinetic model. Although the hydrolysis liquor is a complicated waste matrix, a three-parameter kinetic model capt ured major reaction paths. The kinetic model used total organic carbon (TOC ) as a bulk parameter for dissolved organic materials, while NOx- was used to represent the oxidized nitrogen species in solution (NO2- and NO3-). Wit h the use of the kinetic model, an optimal treatment strategy using two oxi dation stages was derived. The first stage involved balancing NOx- and O-2 redox chemistry to minimize aqueous nitrogen in the effluent, while the sec ond stage mineralized the remaining TOC.