A theory of the plasma torch for waste-treatment

Summary form only given. Arc-plasma technology has broad applications to waste treatment processing including the safe disposal of hazardous and low-level radioactive wastes. The plasma torch could be useful to the development of an efficient, compact, lightweight, clean burning incinerator for industrial and municipal waste disposal in an environmentally beneficial way. We therefore develop a simple theoretical model describing physics of the plasma torch plume in connection with its applications to the arc-plasma waste-treatment system. The theoretical analysis is carried out by making use of Bernoulli´s pressure-balance equation, which provides a stable equilibrium solution of the gas density in the plume ejected from the torch into a high-pressure reactor chamber with 4/spl epsi/<1. The pressure depression parameter E is proportional to the gas temperature and inversely proportional to the square of the chamber pressure.