Decontamination of Biological Warfare (BW) Agents, Toxic Industrial Chemicals (TICs) and Toxic Industrial Materials (TIMs)

The US Government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing decontamination capabilities to protect our military personnel and equipment from chemical warfare agents. With much of the traditional research and development efforts within focused on decontamination of chemical warfare (CW) agents, there has been a recent shift in the research base to include biological warfare (BW) agents, toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) and toxic industrial materials (TIMs). With so many resources already invested in previous and ongoing research to develop safe and effective decontaminating materials for chemical warfare agents, the logical place to start when considering the decontamination of new and emerging threats is the existing body of research related to chemical decontamination being funded by the various Government agencies that are active in this community. The objective of the current solicitation, and the thrust of this proposal, is to evaluate the existing body of research being conducted within the chemical defense community to identify technologies capable of supporting the growing spectrum of decontamination needs. The proposed program will help establish the foundation needed to support the development and implementation of a single, general purpose decontaminating material or solution.