PyroGenesis Canada Inc. has received a contract from the Canadian government to provide technical support during the next and final live agent testing phase of its tactical Plasma Arc Chemical Warfare Agents Destruction System (PACWADS).
On April 19, 2017, the company announced that it had, in coordination with the US-based Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), successfully completed long-duration performance tests using PACWADS with surrogate chemical warfare agent material. These tests supported the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Agnostic Compact Demilitarization of Chemical Agents (ACDC) program and the results far exceeded minimum requirements with over 99.9999% destruction efficiency.
The Final Testing Phase, which is expected to take approximately six months, will be conducted using real chemical warfare agents at secure military facilities abroad, and is expected to confirm the results obtained at PyroGenesis’ facilities using surrogate chemical warfare agents.
“We are highly confident that our System will pass the Final Testing Phase particularly given the fact that we significantly exceeded the minimum requirements of 99.99% destruction efficiency using surrogates,” said Pierre Carabin, Chief Technology Officer of PyroGenesis. “As previously announced, our System demonstrated more than 99.9999% efficiency using surrogates which emulated destruction of such chemical warfare agents such as sarin (GB), soman (GD), and mustard (HD). This additional contract will allow PyroGenesis to support testing using real chemical warfare agents at a secure site.”
The PACWADS has already been shipped to a secure site and the Final Testing Phase begun. These tests are estimated to be completed by the end of Q3 2017.