title: Understanding evaporation characteristics of a drop of distilled sulfur mustard (HD) chemical agent from stainless steel and aluminum substrates.
abstract: We report herein the evaporation rates and mechanism of a drop of distilled sulfur mustard (HD) agent from stainless steel and aluminum substrates. For systematic analysis, we used a laboratory-sized wind tunnel, thermal desorption (TD) connected to gas chromatograph/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and drop shape analysis (DSA). We found that the evaporation rates of HD from stainless steel and aluminum increased with temperature. The rates were also linearly proportional to drop size. The time-dependent contact angle measurement showed that the evaporation of the drop of HD proceeded only by constant contact area mechanism from stainless steel surface. On the other hand, the evaporation of HD from aluminum proceeded by a combined mechanism of constant contact area mode and constant contact angle mode. Our experimental data sets and analysis could be used to predict vapor and contact hazard persistence of chemical warfare agents (CWAs) in the air and on exterior surfaces with chemical releases, which assists the military decision influencing personnel safety and decontamination of the site upon a chemical attack event.
authors.affiliation: Agency for Defense Development, Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon 305-600, South Korea. Electronic address: junghs@add.re.kr.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.affiliation: Agency for Defense Development, Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon 305-600, South Korea.
authors.forename: H W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000535:Aluminum / Q000737:chemistry*; D002619:Chemical Warfare Agents / Q000737:chemistry*; D008401:Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry; D009151:Mustard Gas / Q000737:chemistry*; D013193:Stainless Steel / Q000737:chemistry*; D014919:Wind
chemical_list: D002619:Chemical Warfare Agents; D013193:Stainless Steel; D000535:Aluminum; D009151:Mustard Gas
keywords: Aluminum; Evaporation; Mechanism; Stainless steel; Sulfur mustard