Honors Theses
Date of Award
2005
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Geology and Geological Engineering
First Advisor
Gregg Davidson
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
Picric acid is an explosive historically produced and disposed of at the Louisiana Army Ammunitions Plant (LAAP). The potential for natural degradation was investigated in two studies by creating picric acid slurries with four LAAP samples of sediment of variable composition. While the first study combined the sediment with picric acid without alteration to the sediment, the second study sterilized the sediment before the slurries were created. The purpose of the soil sterilization was to quantify the role of microbes in the degradation process. In the first study, picric acid concentrations decreased 10 to 18% the first day, attributed to adsorption, followed by slower decreases attributed to degradation. Near complete degradation was observed in two of the slumes within eight weeks. No correlation was found between degradation and grain size, clay organic content, or element concentrations in the sediment. The only exception was manganese, which was higher in the two samples which exhibited high degradation. In the second study, initial concentration decreases ranged from 5 to 25%, which can be attributed to adsorption, and minimal degradation was observed for the remainder of the 100-day study. The difference in the degradation between the two studies is attributed to the removal of the microbial communities by sterilization.
Recommended Citation
Rice, Stephanie Kimberly, "Picric Acid Degradation in Sterilized Sediments from the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant, Minden, Louisiana" (2005). Honors Theses. 2250.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2250
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