SARATOV. July 21 (Interfax-AVN) - Tune-up of the thermal deactivation facility for stocks and wastes will begin at the chemical weapons destruction plant in the village of Gorny in the Saratov region on August 1, the plant's information and analytical center said on Monday.
"The drying of the stove and chimneys and the training of personnel is in progress at the facility. Experts of Germany's Lurgi Life Science Gmbh, which supplied the stove to the plant, are conducting the training. Personnel certification is to be completed before September 1," a center official told Interfax- Military News Agency.
The thermal deactivation facility for liquid and solid wastes will make it possible to process stocks from yperite destruction and accompanying wastes that are stored temporarily at the plant. As a result, substances belonging to the third and fourth classes of danger will be obtained to be subsequently buried at the proving range that is under construction near the plant.
Tune-up and introduction of the thermal processing control system into the plant's general multi-layer system of industrial and environmental monitoring will also start on August 1, the official went on. The tune-up will be followed by 30-day tests of the liquid waste thermal processing system running on tap water and its test operation using mock-ups of poisonous substances. The system is expected to be ready for processing real waste in October 2003.
The waste burning stove consumes 125 cubic meters of gas per hour. Its output is 125 kilograms of liquid waste per hour or 300 kilograms of solid waste per hour. Wastes are burned at a temperature of 1,100 degrees Celsius.
According to the official, wastes processing is controlled permanently from loading the stove to getting the end product. In particular, seven emission meters are installed in the stove's chimney to monitory the level of carbon dioxide, sulphur, arsenic and other component in the emissions.