BRYAN CHRISTIE DESIGN

In September 2013, Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons—good thing the US Department of Defense had recently fast-tracked the Field Deployable Hydrolysis System. It's a facility that can digest and neutralize lethal material, and it breaks down into shipping containers for transport anywhere (sidestepping pesky local laws about moving sarin and mustard gas). This summer, two of these laboratories started consuming 600 tons of killer cocktails on a merchant vessel in the Mediterranean, using heat and chemistry to turn poison into trash.

1 | Mixing Tank First you have to prepare the reagent, and each toxin requires a different recipe. For mustard gas, all you need is hot H20; this tank heats 2,200 gallons of it to 194 degrees Fahrenheit.

2 | Storage Tank Batches of chemical weapons start here. As the heated water from the mixing tank starts flowing through the system, 330 gallons of mustard gas get pumped into the mix.

3 | Piping System Pipes made of titanium or plastic-lined carbon steel receive the water and mustard gas and circulate them until they break down into an acidic soup of thiodiglycol and hydrochloric acid. (It takes three hours.)

4 | Waste Containers For every unit of weapons that goes in, the system outputs 5 to 14 times as much waste. You wouldn't drink it, but it's no longer a weapon. It'll go to disposal sites in Germany and Finland.