Hybrid plasma-catalytic oxidation of organic solvents from nuclear industry

在英国和世界各地都有大量未经处理的含有有机物的放射性废物储存。由于没有适当的系统可以处理各种有机物，因此废物仍然未经处理。本项目的目的是开发一种非热等离子体工艺，用于处理这些低水平和中等水平的废物有机物。非热等离子体提供了一种有吸引力的替代传统的路线（热燃烧）的无差别分解和氧化的有机油和溶剂在低温下。与其他热处理技术相比，等离子体处理中快速达到稳态和高反应速率，可以快速启动和关闭工艺，从而显着降低总体能源成本，并为工业应用提供了一条有前途且灵活的路线。这个博士也在研究等离子体和固态催化剂的组合，也被称为混合等离子体催化，它有很大的潜力产生协同效应，显着提高有机液体的转化率，最终产品的选择性，以及等离子体工艺的能量效率。将进行实验测试，以了解各种工艺参数的影响（例如，输入功率、频率、流速、稀释气体等）和催化剂对有机溶剂（例如，模型有机化合物和/或有机化合物的混合物）和生成的气体和液体副产物的氧化的影响。将结合先进的等离子体诊断技术（如时间和空间分辨的光发射光谱学）开发等离子体化学动力学模型，以了解不同活性物质在等离子体氧化过程中的作用以及混合等离子体催化过程中可能的反应途径和机制。该项目是高度跨学科的，将提供一个独特的机会，汇集来自等离子体物理，等离子体化学，催化，动力学建模和核退役的专业知识，以应对核工业的关键挑战。这项工作得到了创新核退役中心（CINDe）的支持，该中心由国家核实验室领导，与塞拉菲尔德有限公司和包括曼彻斯特大学，兰开斯特大学，利物浦大学和坎布里亚大学在内的大学网络合作。

There is a significant amount of untreated radioactive waste containing organic species in storage both in the UK and around the world. The waste remains untreated due to there being no adequate systems in place that can treat the wide range of organic species incorporated.The aim of this project is to develop a non-thermal plasma process for the treatment of these low and intermediate level waste organics. Non-thermal plasma provides an attractive alternative to the conventional route (thermal combustion) for the indiscriminate decomposition and oxidation of organic oils and solvents at low temperatures. The fast attainment of steady-state and high reaction rate in plasma processing allows for a rapid start-up and shutdown of the process compared to other thermal treatment technologies, which significantly reduces the overall energy cost and offers a promising and flexible route for industrial applications. This PhD is also looking at the combination of plasma and solid-state catalysts, also known as hybrid plasma-catalysis, which has great potential to generate a synergistic effect, significantly enhancing the conversion of organic liquids, the selectivity of end-products, as well as the energy efficiency of the plasma process.Experimental tests will be carried out to understand the effect of a wide range of processing parameters (e.g. input power, frequency, flow rate, dilution gas, etc) and catalysts on the oxidation of organic solvents (e.g. a model organic compound and/or a mixture of organic compounds) and generated gas and liquid by-products. Plasma chemical kinetic modelling will be developed in combination with advanced plasma diagnostics (e.g. time and space-resolved optical emission spectroscopy) to understand the roles of different reactive species in the plasma oxidation process and the possible reaction pathways and mechanisms involved in the hybrid plasma-catalytic process. This project is highly interdisciplinary and will provide a unique chance to bring together expertise from plasma physics, plasma chemistry, catalysis, kinetic modelling and nuclear decommissioning to address a key challenge in nuclear industry. This work has been supported by the Centre for Innovative Nuclear Decommissioning (CINDe), which is led by the National Nuclear Laboratory, in partnership with Sellafield Ltd and a network of Universities that includes the University of Manchester, Lancaster University, the University of Liverpool and the University of Cumbria.