According to a report from the US National Academy of Sciences, stockpiles of chemical weapons could be neutralised by bacteria. Under Richard Magee of the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, the US army could dispose of tonnes of mustard gas by first mixing it with water at a temperature of 90C and then treating the products of the reaction with bacteria. Such a process was also tried out with the nerve gas VX, which was treated with sodium hydroxide and then tonnes of it were destroyed by subsequent bacterial treatment.
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