No abstract

Efficient photocatalytic decomposition of chemical warfare agents is a process that may find application in emergency situations or for the controlled destruction of chemical warfare stockpiles. A series of heterogeneous photocatalysts comprising TiO2-activated carbon or N-TiO2-activated carbon composites exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity to effect the complete decomposition of yperite, soman, and VX in high concentrations. The remarkable photocatalytic activity arises from the synergism between adsorption on active carbon and photoactivity by titania. Nitridation makes the composite also active under visible-light irradiation.

We report the applicability of a hybrid system comprising a La-based catalyst and an Au/TiO photocatalyst in the decomposition of chemical weapons. This system is able to perform complete degradation of soman, sarin and VX in less than 1 minute under low basic conditions and visible light irradiation.

The photocatalytic decomposition of yperite (bis(2-chloroethyl)sulfide), a chemical warfare agent, was achieved by using titania-silica catalysts doped with several transition metal ions. The preparation of these catalysts was achieved by impregnation of a titania-silica mixed oxide previously synthesized using a sol-gel route with salts of the doping elements (vanadium, iron, manganese). The above catalysts were characterized using several spectroscopic techniques: FTIR, Raman, DR-UV-Vis, and XPS. The band gap energy was measured for each photocatalytic system. The reaction was carried out in two different types of reactors, i.e. naturally aerated and a closed quartz tube aerated under a constant flow, and using two types of irradiation, UV-Vis and Vis. The investigated systems proved to be extremely active, leading to an almost complete degradation of yperite in 2 h of irradiation. An excellent correlation between the photocatalytic performances and the band gap has been found. Based on the characterization data and on the temporal evolution of the reaction products, a reaction mechanism has been suggested. This mechanism considers two distinct pathways for the decomposition of yperite, namely the C-S bond cleavage and the S oxidation.

This paper comprises an extensive study on the evaluation of decontamination efficiency of three types of reactive organic suspensions (based on nanosized adsorbents) on two real chemical warfare agents: soman (GD) and sulfur mustard (HD). Three types of nanoparticles (ZnO, TiO2, and zeolite) were employed in the decontamination formulations, for enhancing the degradation of the toxic agents. The efficacy of each decontamination solution was investigated by means of GC-MS analysis, considering the initial concentration of toxic agent and the residual toxic concentration, measured at different time intervals, until the completion of the decontamination process. The conversion of the two chemical warfare agents (HD and GD) into their decontamination products was also monitored for 24 h.