Chemical Weapons Destruction Technologies

According to the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a State Party may select and apply the appropriate destruction methods for its chemical weapons (CW). However, it should be noted that in the process of destroying chemical weapon the following methods are not permitted under the provisions of the CWC: dumping in any body of water, land burial, or open pit burning.

The CW destruction technologies have been developed to destroy assembled unitary chemical weapons (artillery projectiles, mortars, air bombs, rockets, rocket warheads, spray tanks), CW agents stored in bulk, binary munitions and recovered CW munitions.

The mature large-scale CW destruction technologies are divided in two main groups: high temperature destruction technologies like incineration, and low-temperature destruction technologies like hydrolysis followed by post-treatment of the generated reaction masses.

The incineration technique, which is the more sophisticated of the two technologies was used at Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System (JACADS), and at the currently operated Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility (TOCDF). When chemical weapons are dismantled, three groups of component parts are generated - the agent, explosives and metal parts. Each component group is treated separately. Agent combustion at or above 14000 Celsius leads to the full mineralisation of organic compounds, and the generated oxides are removed by scrubbing. The drained munitions cases and emptied containers are decontaminated by the thermal treatment. The public concern about incineration in the United States has led to the development of a low-temperature, two-stage process, which is considered to be an "alternative" to the "base-line" incineration technology.

In the US, two destruction facilities will take advantage of the available alternative technologies to the agents stored in bulks - Aberdeen Proving Ground (HD hot water hydrolysis followed by biodegradation), and Newport Chemical Depot (VX alkaline hydrolysis followed by Super Critical Water Oxidation (SCWO)).

The Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment program (ACWA) has focused on alternative CW munitions destruction methodologies such as: hydrolysis followed by SCWO, hydrolysis followed by biodegradation, Silver II-Silver in nitric acid, and hydrolysis followed by SCWO with Transpiring Wall Reactor and Gas Phase Chemical Reduction systems. If so decided, these procedures could be implemented at the destruction facilities in Pine Bluff, Kentucky and Pueblo, Colorado. And finally, three additional candidate technologies are being created: Plasma Arc, Solvated Electron Technology and Cryofracture.

The Russian Federation completed destruction of lewisite (L) at Gorny CWDF, Saratov region. The destruction technology for lewisite is based on the low-temperature batch process alkaline hydrolysis.

Mobile destruction systems have been designed for the emergency destruction of obsolete/recovered CW monitions. The Explosive Destruction Systems, EDS Phase 1 (USA) and the KUASI (Russia), detoxify the agent fill in reaction with a monoethanolamine/water mixture. CW items are breached with shaped charges or drilled to drain the agent. With the use of Ballistic Tents and Foam Systems (BTSF), recovered CW munitions may be destroyed in the field using detonation and subsequent agent decontamination.