Effect of Thickener on Measurement of Simulant Retention and Decontamination Performance for Materials

Decontamination technologies are generally tested under controlled, idealized laboratory environments with clean and uniform materials, high-purity agents, and single geometries. From an operational context, these conditions are often not met in the real world. Therefore, the magnitude of how these conditions affect the decontamination performance is relatively unknown and the results of laboratory tests may not be directly comparable to real-world decontamination scenarios. This report is part of a series of reports designed to provide details of the results from an investigation of issues such as the effects of agent purity, additives, and fouled surfaces. The focus herein is on how an additive agent thickener can cause a difference in the estimation of decontamination performance in terms of the remaining agent on an asset and contact transfer to an individual. This study used methyl salycilate as the contaminant. We also studied how and why there was such a drastic difference in decontaminant performance for specific scenarios when an agent thickener was present.