Project Summary (2000-2005)

Reductive dehalogenation technologies, in contrast to oxidative techniques, can provide complete detoxification of hazardous chlorinated organics. The objectives of this project are to study the role of reductive agent morphology on the product distribution and rate, establish the degradation rates of intermediate byproducts (vinyl chloride is an example), and close the elemental balances (particularly C and Cl) around the degradation processes. The reductive agent systems being investigated include zero-valent iron particles, zero-valent nanoscale metal particles and composites, high surface area/high porosity iron coated composites, and novel immobilized vitamin B12 derivative (electropolymerization) systems. In addition to the development of highly versatile models for chlorinated organics dehalogenation rates, researchers are studying the reactive surface morphology (by AFM and XPS methods) changes as a function of reaction time.