The present work reveals a comprehensive decontamination study on real and simulated biological and chemical warfare agents (BCWA). The emphasis was on evaluating the antimicrobial activity against real biological warfare agents, such as Bacillus anthracis, and also the capacity of neutralizing real chemical warfare agents, such as mustard gas or soman, by employing three different types of organic solutions enriched with ZnO, TiO₂, and zeolite nanoparticles, specially designed for decontamination applications. The capacity of decontaminating BCWA was evaluated through specific investigation tools, including surface monitoring with the swabs method, minimum inhibitory (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) evaluations, time-kill tests for microorganisms, and GC-MS for monitoring chemical agents on different types of surfaces (glass, painted metal, rubber, and cotton butyl rubber). These tests revealed high decontamination factors for BCWA even after only 10 min, accomplishing the requirements imposed by NATO standards. At the completion of the decontamination process, the formulations reached 100% efficacy for Bacillus anthracis after 10–15 min, for soman after 20–30 min, and for mustard gas in an interval comprised between 5 and 24 h depending on the type of surface analyzed.

This paper comprises an extensive study on the evaluation of decontamination efficiency of three types of reactive organic suspensions (based on nanosized adsorbents) on two real chemical warfare agents: soman (GD) and sulfur mustard (HD). Three types of nanoparticles (ZnO, TiO₂, and zeolite) were employed in the decontamination formulations, for enhancing the degradation of the toxic agents. The efficacy of each decontamination solution was investigated by means of GC-MS analysis, considering the initial concentration of toxic agent and the residual toxic concentration, measured at different time intervals, until the completion of the decontamination process. The conversion of the two chemical warfare agents (HD and GD) into their decontamination products was also monitored for 24 h.

Nitrocellulose based propellants are the main materials used for ballistic and rocket applications. The chemical composition of the propellants, the loading density and propellant grain geometry are the decisive parameters that influence the performance parameters in ballistic application. In this paper the authors evaluate three models of combustion for energetic materials for the determination of heat of explosion and specific volume together with the adiabatic flame temperature. The authors select six types of propellant (two simple base propellants, two double base propellants based on nitroglycerine and two triple base propellants based on nitroguanidine) and the authors determined the heat of explosion and specific volume using a bomb calorimeter and a Julius-Peters device. The results obtained from the combustion models were compared to the experimental results and assumptions were done on the influence of pressure and temperature on the chemical composition of combustion gases produced by the confined deflagration of nitrocellulose-based propellants.

International standards and environmental regulations require the development of new decontamination solutions for hazardous chemicals of military interest (chemical warfare agents) and industrial chemicals (pesticides, insecticides, etc.). It is necessary for them to be more efficient, with a higher decontamination speed and less waste generation. Metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) have been intensively studied and have shown promising results in various industries (alimentary [¹], medicine [²,³], pharmaceutical [⁴,⁵] and microbiology [⁶,⁷]). Metal oxide NPs offer promising outcomes—such as small particle size, high specific surface area, and unique physicochemical properties—which allow them to both adsorb and degrade toxic compounds due to their catalytic activity [⁸,⁹,¹⁰]. The paper presents the influence of zinc oxide nanoparticles, embedded in an internally developed amino-alcoholic decontamination solution, on the decontamination efficiency of chemical warfare nerve and blister agents. In this paper, we aimed to evaluate, using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry/electron impact, the decontamination efficiency of ZnO NPs embedded in the organic decontamination solution. The decontamination efficiency was evaluated against two toxic compounds: sulfur mustard (HD) and soman (GD). Several solutions with different concentrations of ZnO NPs (0.1–2%) were tested and compared with the reference decontamination solutions. The decontamination efficiency was evaluated using GC-MS/EI analysis at 2, 10, and 30 min, and 1, 3, 5 and 24 h. The decontamination product formation was observed and quantified throughout the process. The decontamination procedures were caried out at 25 °C with magnetic stirring. The presence of ZnO NPs in the organic decontamination solution showed better decontamination efficiency, which increased along with the concentration of NPs added, at a concentration interval of 0.1–1%. The solution with 2% ZnO NPs showed a decrease in the decontamination efficiency in the cases of both HD and GD.

Sonochemistry studies the physical and molecular level changes induced by ultrasonic energy on solutions. Sonochemical degradation of the chemical warfare agents (CWA) may occur due to three successive phenomena based on the principles of acoustic cavitation phenomena: nucleation, growth, and implosive collapse of microbubbles. The sonolytic degradation of CWA was quantified by GC-MS technique, considering the variation of some parameters such as frequency of ultrasonic waves, power control, temperature, and addition of nanoparticles as catalysts to the solution.