Halide salts accelerate degradation of high explosives by zerovalent iron

Zerovalent iron (Fe0, ZVI) has drawn great interest as an inexpensive and effective material to promote the degradation of environmental contaminants. A focus of ZVI research is to increase degradation kinetics and overcome passivation for long-term remediation. Halide ions promote corrosion, which can increase and sustain ZVI reactivity. Adding chloride or bromide salts with Fe0 (1% w/v) greatly enhanced TNT, RDX, and HMX degradation rates in aqueous solution. Adding Cl or Br salts after 24 h also restored ZVI reactivity, resulting in complete degradation within 8 h. These observations may be attributed to removal of the passivating oxide layer and pitting corrosion of the iron. While the relative increase in degradation rate by Cl− and Br− was similar, TNT degraded faster than RDX and HMX. HMX was most difficult to remove using ZVI alone but ZVI remained effective after five HMX reseeding cycles when Br− was present in solution.