Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

5-31-2025

Degree Name

Master of Science in Chemical Engineering - (M.S.)

Department

Chemical and Materials Engineering

First Advisor

Edward L. Dreyzin

Second Advisor

Mirko Schoenitz

Third Advisor

Kerri Lee Chintersingh

Abstract

Combustion products of three different Al-based materials, Al-CaCO3, Al-SiO2, and Al-Fe2O3 , have been produced to understand their interaction with liquid diisopropyl methyl phosphonate (DIMP), a surrogate for chemical weapon agents. The purpose of this is to see which materials were more effective at DIMP adsorption and decomposition at different temperatures. Prepared materials were characterized using electron microscopy, x-ray powder diffraction, and nitrogen adsorption. Prepared powders were submerged in DIMP and heated in a thermal analyzer, tracking the mass changes as a function of temperature. Surfaces of the recovered materials were studied using infrared spectroscopy. Multi-linear regression models were built, for which small values of AICc (Akaike Information criterion) and high values of p-value served as criteria of their statistical significance. Material characteristics including their surface area, the semi-quantitatively determined fractions of different alumina polymorphs, and of the unoxidized aluminum were used as the independent variables to predict the values of residual mass of DIMP remaining on the powder surface at different temperatures. Differences in chemical compositions of different powders were not directly accounted for in the models limiting the quality of the observed correlations. The method developed here can be used for interpreting future experiments identifying significant factors affecting the DIMP interaction with different powders.

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