Destruction of industrial solvents using an arcjet plasma torch

Summary form only given, as follows. A small-scale thermal plasma torch has been constructed to determine the feasibility of its use for the disposal of hazardous solvents such as the organic chlorides trichloroethylene and trichloroethane. The plasma reactor has been studied using acetone and trichloroethylene as test compounds. The plasma jet is generated using a commercial AC/DC welding supply, and is operated at currents ranging from 50 to 200 Amperes and solvent now rates up to 200 ml/hr. Argon has been used as the plasma gas in most experiments, but nitrogen and helium are also used; the use of nitrogen and helium increases the enthalpy of the gas for a given input power and thus increases the potential waste destruction efficiency. Oxygen is also added to the reaction chamber to alter the reaction chemistry. Destruction of the solvent and the production of by products are monitored using a residual gas analyzer, and the temperature of the plasma plume is measured using an enthalpy probe. The daughter products of the destruction of acetone are primarily CO, CH/sub 4/, C/sub 2/H/sub 2/, C/sub 2/H/sub 4/, and other C/sub x/H/sub y/ radicals. Adding oxygen to the system during acetone destruction increases the production of CO/sub 2/ and significantly decreases the amount of acetone in the exhaust gases. This reactor has achieved greater than 99 percent destruction efficiency for acetone when oxygen is added to the reaction mixture at an arcjet current of 75 Amperes.