The Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) has sponsored research on environmental characteristics of aircraft and pavement deicers and anti-icers focusing primarily on biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and aquatic toxicity of formulated products and individual chemical components of formulations. This report presents a background of issues leading to this research, objectives of this document, and a description of the efforts and findings of this research.
Except when the distinction among products is necessary for clarity, “deicer” will refer to aircraft-deicing fluids (ADFs), aircraft anti-icing fluids (AAFs), and pavement-deicing materials (PDMs) generally.
The efforts of this project have included the following:
- A review of regulations and specifications related to the performance and environmental characteristics of deicer formulations
- A review of issues related to the impact that deicers have on aquatic systems and causes of those impacts
- Laboratory testing of current-use deicers to establish benchmark values for aquatic toxicity, BOD, and chemical oxygen demand (COD)
- A review of deicer formulations under development and their relevant performanceand environmental-related characteristics
- A review of operational and infrastructure considerations
- A synopsis of current analytical methods used in environmental characterization of airport deicing runoff
- A toxicity-based investigation of current-use deicers to determine components responsible for toxicity and identify component classes to focus a search for alternative components
- Identification of gaps in knowledge and data pertaining to the above topics
