Are there alternatives to high-temperature “baseline” incineration to destroy chemical weapons?
A variety of alternative destruction technologies are currently being considered as substitutes for the incineration process. Three broad categories of alternative technologies include thermal treatment; low-temperature, liquid-phase processes; and medium- and high-temperature processes. One of the better known alternatives in the first category is cryofracture, which involves the use of liquid nitrogen to freeze the weapon before crushing it and placing it in an incinerator as the final step in the destruction process. Examples of technologies in the second category include biological processes, where enzymes are introduced to degrade certain agents, and chemical hydrolysis, where the chemical agent is mixed with water or other substances to reduce agent toxicity. The final category includes plasma arc pyrolysis-the use of electric current to break down the chemical agent in a thermal plasma field at extremely high temperatures-and supercritical water oxidation-the mixture of chemical
