Custom pyrolyzer for the pyrolysis of chemical warfare agents

Thermal decomposition studies on a chemical warfare agent (CWA) simulant was performed using a custom built pyrolyzer. The goals of this study were to design, build and evaluate a simple pyrolyzer to meet the safety and security requirements necessary to obtain consistent CWA and CWA simulant pyrolysis data from multiple laboratories around the world. A custom made tubular flow reactor was built, the pyrolysis effluent was collected on solid sorbent tubes, and was analyzed by thermal desorption (TD) gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Experiments were conducted with triethyl phosphate (TEP), a well-studied CWA simulant, to determine the activation energy (Ea) and rate constant (k) for the unimolecular decomposition of TEP under the designed experimental conditions and to validate pyrolyzer performance. Experiments with TEP were conducted at five different temperatures (375-440 degrees C) with samples collected at five flow rates. The activation energy for TEP decomposition was determined to be 32.0 +/- 7.6 kcal/mol which is consistent with previous reported literature data.

Automated summary

The study focused on thermal decomposition of a chemical warfare agent simulant using a custom built pyrolyzer. The experiments aimed to design a simple pyrolyzer that meets safety and security requirements for consistent data collection. Results showed that the activation energy for TEP decomposition was determined to be 32.0 +/- 7.6 kcal/mol, consistent with previous literature data.