Analysis of the Selected Types of Waste Treatment by Plasma Technology - Part II
Abstract
The series of articles (Analysis of the selected types of waste treatment by plasma technology. Part I., Part II.) discusses the processing of selected three types of waste using plasma technology. In this second part of the article, the processing of fly ash from municipal waste, silicone rubber and asbestos-cement material using plasma reactor technology is presented. At the end of the article, the effectiveness or the contribution of individual experiments focused on the processing of the mentioned solid wastes using plasma technology.
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Introduction
Plasma gasification and melting of waste commodities can be classified as a technology with wide-spectrum use of batch processing, whether from the field of metallurgy, but also various types of waste, either from the field of industry or municipal waste. The technology has been used for about 40 years. Its use is discussed in several experiments that have been published [1, 2]. Whether it is possible to talk about a universal technology for the treatment of any waste, we were convinced with the help of the plasma gasification and melting laboratory device at the Department of Energy Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Košice.
Conclusion
The conducted experiments can be considered successful. In all cases of thermal treatment by plasma technology at high temperatures in a nitrogen atmosphere, the processed batch was decomposed into gaseous components and a solid residue in the form of chimney waste or product in a plasma reactor, or in the form of vitrified slag.
The energy recovery of the produced synthesis gas would be possible in all cases, but it is important to clean it before the actual use process. The calorific value of the produced synthesis gas for all types of input waste is shown in Table 10.
In the case of plasma processing of silicone rubber, the production of chimney waste represented an unexpected problem, i.e. the weight of the chimney waste to the weight of the batch was 20 wt. %. Chimney waste was mostly deposited in the chimney space of the reactor, and its deposition in some places caused almost 100% of the cross-section of the pipe system to be clogged.
From laboratory analyses in the case of vitrified slag as a product of plasma processing of fly ash from municipal solid waste and waste asbestos-cement roofing, it can be concluded that the vitrified slag represents inert waste without its further negative impact on the environment.
Only what concerns the plasma processing of silicone rubber, under the marginal conditions valid for the given experiment, is unjustified from an economic and ecological point of view. The processing of silicon waste in a plasma reactor does not exclude the formation of toxic products released during the chemical reactions occurring in the process of thermal decomposition of the batch. However, if the marginal conditions are changed, it is not excluded that the processing of silicone rubber by plasma technology would not bring the desired results for a more ecological solution for the disposal of this type of waste.