A Holow Cathode DC Plasma Torch for Waste Treatment

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As traditional waste repositories, such as landfills, become less and less available, treatment of waste in an environmentallyresponsible manner has become one of our central problems. Since many types of waste are organic, incineration has beenincreasingly used for reduction of the waste volume. However, high off-gas flow rates and the consequent high cost of off-gasclean-up, as well as the production of residues containing hazardous materials, mean that incineration does not offer a completeanswer to the waste problem. Furthermore, many wastes have a low heating value, and their combustion requires additionalsources of fuel.Thermal plasma offers an attractive alternative to incineration for waste treatment . The principal advantages that a plasma offersto treatment processes are :(a) high energy densities and high temperatures which allow for rapid heating and reactor start-up; high heat and reactant transferrates; smaller installation size for a given waste throughput; melting of high temperature materials; and,(b) use of electricity as the energy source which results in decoupling of the heat generation from combustion and hence thevolume of air required; lower off-gas flow rates and consequently lower gas cleaning costs.The proposed project is on the manufacture and testing of a 75-kW DC plasma torch for waste treatment. Our industrial partner,Aplas, has made the preliminary design of the torch.