How do you get rid of chemical weapons? It's easier said than done. The army employs an ingenious explosive vacuum chamber to burn the deadly weapons into harmless ash.

Dubbed the DAVINCH (Detonation of Ammunition in a Vacuum-Integrated Chamber) and developed by Kobe Steel, Ltd. of Kobe, Japan, this system is an example of Explosive Destruction Technology (EDT) that employs explosive charges or heat to burn out chemical weapons.

The steel vacuum detonation chamber is built to detonate some of the most deadly biological weapons harmlessly. It is comprised of a pair of nestled chambers, weighing over 16,000 pounds, and has a 30,000 pound air-tight blast door. As a Board on Army Science and Technology report explains:
The [DAVINCH] process uses a detonation chamber in which chemical munitions are destroyed when donor charges surrounding the munitions are detonated. Offgases are produced that require secondary treatment…The offgases resulting from agent destruction in the DAVINCH vessel are filtered to remove particulates and, with oxygen from an external supply, are pumped into the cold plasma oxidizer, which oxidizes CO to CO2. Condensate water is then recovered from the exhaust gas; the gas is passed through activated carbon and exhausted to the atmosphere.

The facility has destroyed more than 1.1 million explosive weapons containing toxic chemical agents by cutting them open and draining the agents and burning the contents. But there were 300 corroded and rotting munitions containing mustard gas which was too risky to attempt with that method. Instead, the army installed DAVINCH in 2011 to take care of the task.

Four DAVINCH systems have been installed at sites in Japan, Belgium and China.

[KSL - Bonnint - Begel House - Defense Industry Daily - US Army - Baltimore Sun - CNN]