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Persistence of Chemical Warfare Agent VX on Building Material Surfaces
Citation:
Oudejans, L. Persistence of Chemical Warfare Agent VX on Building Material Surfaces. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/S-19/074, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
A release of VX, one of the most persistent chemical nerve agents, will create an acute and significant exposure risk to the public as well as remediation contractors who would be tasked to cleanup a contaminated site. Remediation operations will benefit from improved knowledge on the actual persistence of this agent on various building materials. This technical brief provides a summary of two research projects that studied the impact of temperature and air flow on the persistence of VX as measured for ten materials with different degrees of permeability. The results of this research will inform the EPA response community and other Federal, State, Tribal and Local agencies on the expected rate of dissipation of VX that should be considered as part of the remediation strategy to cleanup VX contaminated sites.
Description:
This brief provides a summary of two recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) bench-scale studies assessing the persistence of VX on various building material surfaces. This overview provides decision‐makers with practical information on the expected persistence of VX following a chemical incident, which will inform the remediation strategy to reopen contaminated buildings or infrastructure.