Egyptologist David Falk, in his book on the Egyptian context of the ark of the covenant, says that one of the things he is asked about most often is the fate of Israel's ark of the covenant. The last time the ark is mentioned in the biblical account of the history of Israel is in 2 Chronicles 35:3, where King Josiah of Judah gave these instructions:
"And he said to the Levites who taught all Israel and who were holy to the LORD, 'Put the holy ark in the house that Solomon the son of David, king of Israel, built. You need not carry it on your shoulders. Now serve the LORD and his people Israel."
Here it seems that the ark was being restored to its rightful place after having been removed for a time. We are not told why, or for how long, it had been removed. Perhaps the ark had been removed from the Holy of Holies during the reign of a previous idolatrous king of Judah--e.g., Manasseh or Amon (2 Chron 33). Or perhaps it had been removed briefly during the renovations authorized by Josiah (2 Chron 34).
Josiah died in 609 BC, and the Temple was destroyed a generation later by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 586 BC. We read in 2 Chronicles 36:18 that the Babylonians took "all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD."
Noting that the Babylonians paid their soldiers in gold, Falk writes that they probably took the ark, burned the wood, and melted down the gold for that purpose. Perhaps they used one of their "fiery furnaces" like the one in which they had thrown Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Dan 3). The Babylonians' interest in looting precious metals from the Temple is also indicated in 2 Kings 25:13-17
Remember that God's presence had already departed from the Temple several years earlier, in about 592 BC (Eze 8:1; 10). so by the time the Babylonians ransacked the Temple, nothing was stopping them from grabbing everything that remained there.
But was the ark still around by the time the Babylonians arrived? There are some legends that the ark had been hidden away by that point.
For example, in 2 Maccabees, written in the second century BC, there is a story that Jeremiah the prophet "ordered the tabernacle and the ark to accompany them, an oracle being received by him, and that he went out to the mountain from which Moses, upon ascending, beheld the inheritance of God. And when he arrived, Jeremiah found a cave-like house, and he brought in there the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense, and he blocked up the door" (2 Macc 2:4-5). The ark was to remain hidden until God wanted to use it again (verses 6-8).
Other possibilities are discussed in rabbinic literature. According to one scenario, when Josiah learned about the contents of the book of Deuteronomy, including the curses of Deuteronomy 28, he decided to have the ark hidden in a secret place under the temple. In this scenario, he told the Levites in 2 Chronicles 35:3 to hide the ark in that secret place rather than in the Holy of Holies (b Yoma 52b).
Wherever the ark ended up, there is a biblical indication that it had an expiration date. In Jeremiah 3:14-18, God states that the ark "shall not come to mind or be mentioned or missed; it shall not be made again" (verse 16). In a renewed covenant, the Torah that had been written on tables of stone would be written on people's hearts (Jer 31:31-34).
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