Molten salt oxidation (MSO) is a promising technology for the treatment of secondary wastestreams as the result of demilitarization. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory demonstrated the technology since the early 1990s on various U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Defense wastestreams.

In 2001, a pilot-scale MSO treatment system was designed and delivered to the U.S. Defense Ammunition Center (DAC) to study the technology for the destruction of explosive-contaminated sludge and charcoal. The results of this testing led DAC to commission an MSO treatment system to be used as part of a large scale demilitarization facility in South Korea.

At the completion of testing, the pilot-scale MSO treatment system was moved from DAC in 2004 to the Blue Grass Army Depot (BGAD) in Richmond, Kentucky, where it was used for demonstration testing on TNT waste sludges. The pilot system will also be used as a basis for scale-up data for a prototype process for applications involving a variety of BGAD's other demilitarization process wastestreams. The effort at BGAD is being executed with technical supervision and support from the U.S. Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center.

Both of these systems are being implemented in the field by MSE Technology Applications, Inc. funded through DAC. This presentation will cover the installation and test results of the Korean MSO treatment system and discuss TNT demonstration operations performed on the pilot-scale MSO treatment system at BGAD.