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Environmental fate & pathways

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Biodegradation occurs only in environmental compartments that contain liquid water (e.g. surface waters, sediments, wet soils). Phosgene will hydrolyse instantaneously in such media, with a measured half-life in the order of 0.026 seconds (Manogue and Pigford, 1960). Abiotic degradation is therefore an important environmental fate process for phosgene rather than biodegradation. The products of phosgene hydrolysis are hydrogen chloride (HCl) and carbon dioxide, neither of which could be further transformed through aerobic biodegradation.