MIDDLETON, Iowa - While awaiting patent application approval, ERDC Environmental Laboratory’s (EL) Dr. Heather Smith recently shared results of her iron-bioreactor for surface water treatment research at a presentation to the Remediation Advisory Board, stakeholders and local press at the USACE Iowa Army Ammunitions Plant (IAAAP) in Middleton, Iowa.
Sponsored by an environmental remediation company, PIKA International Inc., the presentation focused on Smith’s field design experiments with RDX (Research Department Explosive) as an explosive nitrosamine used in military and industrial applications.
The iron-bioreactor combines an abiotic treatment of RDX with microbial regeneration. Surface water is treated as it passively flows into the reactor during rain events. It provides a low-cost and low maintenance treatment option for surface water.
Widely used in World War II, RDX was developed as an explosive more powerful than TNT (cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine).
Finding alternative remediation processes that prove successful would benefit the IAAAP, a 20,000 acre site with 8,000 of those acres used for both munitions production and testing.
The IAAAP is on the Comprehensive Environmental Response and Compensation Liability Act National Priority List for past generation of large volumes of explosives-laden wastewater.
Smith’s iron-bioreactor offers an effective treatment to help solve the problem in this engineering with nature process.