Plasma Cracking

Principles of Plasma Cracking

Plasma cracking is like reactor cracking a non-incineration thermal process using temperatures more than 2000°C by cracking high stability materials like fluorinated compounds into smaller molecules. Temperatures of more than 2500°C must be avoided in order to limit the production of new harmful compounds by recombination of cracked molecules especially with oxygen. The TRANSFERCENTER SPACE together with HUG-engineering has developed a cracking process based on plasma technique for the disposal of halogenated fluorocarbons using thermal steam plasma as a heat source and a source of chemical active radicals in a high temperature zone. This ensures the complete conversion of the molecules into substances which can be recovered or neutralized. For waste like ODS material or PCBs it is necessary to add an oxygen and/or a hydrogen carrier to achieve a stoichometric mixture. In principle as a plasma gas gases as argon, nitrogen, air or water steam can be used. For destruction of ODS material a water plasma is favorable because both, the oxygen and the hydrogen which is necessary to produce the desired products after the high temperature zone-CO, CO₂, HF and HCl- are supplied by the heat carrier itself. By injecting the hazardous substance into the steam plasma plume, it is heated to more than 1700°C. At this high temperatures the molecules dissociated and in the presence of water steam plasma these components react to become carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride. The exhaust gas mixture coming out of the high temperature zone is quenched down very rapidly to avoid recombination of dioxins and furans. Hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride can be recovered as hydrochloric acid and hydrofluoric acid or if there are only small amount it can be neutralized.