- 4:05 PM
441c

Closed Loop Processing of Energetics to Safely Eliminate Emissions

Brian Butters and Tony Powell. Purifics ES Inc., 340 Sovereign Road, London, ON N6M 1A8, Canada

The objective of this project at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indianhead was to create a fully automated, packaged, state-of-the-art process system that dramatically reduced or eliminated the health, safety, and environmental hazards associated with production operations involving energetics, such as nitroglycerine (NG) based rocket propellants. This paper will examine VOC emissions consisting of NG and plasticizers from annealing energetics. These contaminants cannot be filtered safely and effectively because they are explosive upon accumulation. Significant effort has been expended in an attempt to arrive at a safe and reliable solution for cleaning air containing explosive combinations of chemicals and other VOCs. One critical feature involves eliminating the possibility of NG and other energetics from condensing at any point in the pollution control equipment. Different options have been evaluated and optimized through pilot testing. This paper will review the integrated pollution control and production facility for processing energetic emissions that was engineered and built using state-of-the-art technology. It incorporates the concept of closed loop design to eliminate air and water emissions, and deal with the challenges associated with environmental compliance. This solution was installed and transferred to the client in 2002, and has been in successful operation ever since. A review of the operational experiences to date, mass loading and other functional attributes will be discussed. The design concepts employed in this installation work and are transferable to other applications involving production and processing of energetic compounds.