Dear editor,
In a previous letter (Aug 7, 2025), I wrote that the Meaford military training base was highly contaminated. The worst area is called the ‘impact zone’. I’ve been told that it is extremely dangerous because of high concentrations of white phosphorus, which when touched would burn the skin severely. In this letter, I’d like to propose how this area could be cleaned up and repurposed into a clean electrical power generation facility. This would be done in two stages.
In the first stage, you build a phosphoric acid factory/thermal power plant that uses white phosphorous as its fuel. When white phosphorus burns in air, it forms phosphorus oxides, primarily phosphorus pentoxide and a lot of heat. The phosphorus pentoxide then reacts with water to form phosphoric acid. The heat generated from this process (and if needed, hydrogen gas) is used to drive a thermal generator to produce electricity.
The resulting phosphoric acid is then used to produce Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cells (PAFC). They are known for being a mature, commercially available technology type of fuel cell that uses liquid phosphoric acid as its electrolyte, typically with platinum catalysts and carbon electrodes. These cells operate by feeding hydrogen-rich gas and air to the anode, and air is fed to the cathode. At the anode, hydrogen is oxidized to produce protons and electrons. The protons conduct through the phosphoric acid electrolyte to the cathode, while the electrons travel through an external circuit, generating electricity. At the cathode, oxygen from the air reacts with the protons and electrons to form water.
Also, these cells operate at moderate temperatures. This heat could be used in the first stage of a thermal power plant. Since hydrogen will already be readily available at the facility, it could be used to fuel the second stage to produce enough heat to drive a thermal generator.
In summary, the impact zone at the base could be economically cleaned up by using the white phosphorus contaminants as fuel to drive a thermal power generators and the byproducts used to build Dual method power plants using phosphoric acid fuel cells and hydrogen gas.
Anton Komar, Meaford
