Radiation chemistry of aqueous trichloroethene

Full text: Halogenated hydrocarbons have played a key role in Industrial processes for many years. The problems of disposal of used solvents and chloroderivatives is now a problem facing chemical companies, industrial and domestic users. A range of treatments have been suggested and tried from high efficiency incineration to photo-catalytic hydrolysis. Radiation chemistry offers a route to dissolution and dehalogenation of halocarbons in general by virtue of free radical reactions and in particular the dissociative electron capture process resulting from the generation of solvated electrons. RCl + e-aq → R + Cl-aq. The fate of the free radical, R, is crucial to the subsequent degradation of the halocarbon. It will probably contain more organic chlorine, or other halogens, which ideally should be degradable to inert inorganic halide. In this study pulse radiolysis studies have been conducted on aqueous solutions of trichloroethene (TCE) which is a commonly used industrial cleaning solvent. The production of free radicals has been monitored by fast time resolution absorption spectroscopy using a pulse radiolysis facility at the Australian Radiation Laboratory Yallambie Victoria. Fee radical species have been detected in pulse electron irradiated solutions of TCE at various pH's and in the presence of Oxygen and Nitrous oxide. The nature of these radical species will be discussed. The production of inorganic chlorine is being monitored by a spectrophotometric technique based upon a mercuric thiocyanate/ ferric ion complexation which can detect free chloride ion concentrations down to ppm levels