One way of biomass and/or waste recycling is its thermochemical conversion into combustible gas. Mainly composed of CO,H 2 and CH 4 , the gas may also contain varying amounts of impurities (dust, polluting products, tar or soot). Specifically, there is a tar problem: their high condensation temperature is incompatible with an industrial utilization. They can cause rapid fouling, corrosion and abrasion into turbines or engines. Proposed by EUROPLASMA, the CHO-Power process aims to generate electricity from a mixture of municipal waste and biomass using a fixed bed gasifier with conventional gas treatment. Its specificity consists of an unit called Turboplasma. This stage allows to reach very high temperature in order to obtain temperature around 1600K, and so to degrade all tars present, even heavier. Indeed, EUROPLASMA built a gasification pilot unit based on fluidized bed technology, (called KIWI) to qualify the synthesis gas produced. TURBOPLASMA pilot scale will be installed there. The objective of this work is the design of this high temperature stage thanks to numerical modeling. Reaction scheme used previously [4] to modelize tar degradation in the Turboplasma of CHO-Power, has been improved: a discrete phase modeling has been added providing a better view of the TURBOPLASMA internal behavior. Indeed, char particles from syngas can significantly change the reactor performance. This study shows that char particles react primarily with the H 2 O and CO 2 . Char gasification takes place in areas of high velocity and temperature gradient. Increased understanding of aerodynamics inside the reactor allows a better estimate of the overall performance of the reactor. Performance evaluation of the reactor is based on a set of parameters such as levels of heat loss, velocity gradient, mixing quality, residence time.

The City of Marion (“City”) and wastenotIowa, Inc. (WNI), along with other interested parties, has been considering the use of a plasma are gasification plant (“Plant”) as a technology that could reduce their future dependency on landfill disposal. As currently envisioned, the Plant would serve Linn County, including the City and the University of Iowa (“UI”) Oakdale research campus, located in Johnson County. In the next step of their evaluations, the City along with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has commissioned SCS Engineers (SCS) to perform a formal economic feasibility study of the Plant. The feasibility study included: •Assessing potential for other waste material other than municipal solid waste in the region as supplemental plant feedstock. •Assessing potential markets for the plasma plant byproducts. •Determining the feasibility, requirements and costs related to an interconnect with the power utility grid. •Assessing the option that the UI could potentially be the exclusive power customer for the Plant. •Developing a pro-forma model so that various options can be evaluated for the Plant capacity and material and energy output configurations over an assumed initial 20-year contract operating phase, including; –Production of syngas for conversion to electrical power –Production of syngas for direct use and conversion to fuel products –Production of insulation from slag to enhance project revenues. •Determining the potential economic impact of the Plant on the region.

Thermal plasma torches convert electricity to high-temperature thermal energy by applying a high voltage across a flowing gas stream. Plasma torches are used extensively for producing metallic and ceramic coatings and also for vitrifying hazardous materials, such as asbestos-contaminated wastes. In the last decade, several thermal plasma processes have been proposed for treating municipal solid wastes (MSW). This research is based on a critical analysis of previous work by the Earth Engineering Center and on published reports and examines the possibilities for the proposed thermal plasma (TP) processes to be recover energy from MSW as an alternative to the conventional waste-to-energy (WTE) by grate combustion. In particular, this study will investigate two prominent thermal plasma technologies that are presently under development: The Alter NRG “Westinghouse” process in the U.S. and the Europlasma process in France. The environmental impacts and the technical economic aspects of plasma-assisted WTE processes will be compared to the traditional process of MSW combustion on a moving grate.

In 2003 Eco-Valley became one of the first waste-to-energy facilities in the world to utilize Plasma Gasification technology on a commercial basis. Eco-Valley is located in Japan and has been successfully processing MSW with plasma for over seven years. The facility processes up to 220 tonnes-per day of MSW or up to 165 tonnes per day of a 50/50 mixture of MSW and auto shredder residue. The technology used at Eco-Valley is a result of a successful collaboration between Westinghouse Plasma Corp. and Hitachi Metals. With a first of kind facility like Eco-Valley, several operational challenges had to be overcome during and after commissioning. The objective of this paper is to share these operational experiences and learnings.

Biomass is one of the most important sources of renewable energy. One aim of Biomass gasification is to convert a solid feedstock into a valuable syngas for electricity or liquid fuel production. Actual industrial auto-thermal gasification processes achieve a production of syngas mainly polluted by products such as dust, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and tars. Tars remain, one of the main drawbacks in using the gasification process since they are capable of condensing at low temperature. This could lead to fouling, corrosion, attrition and abrasion of downstream devices such as gas turbines or engines. Tars are often removed from the syngas, decreasing the internal energy of the syngas itself. These tars are heavy aromatic hydrocarbons whose treatment remains difficult by thermal, catalytic or even physical methods. They can condense or polymerize into more complex structures, and the mechanisms responsible for their degradation are not completely identified and understood. Turboplasma© is a thermal process, proposed by Europlasma. The main principle of operation relies on the use of thermal plasma for the cracking of tars inside a syngas produced in an auto-thermal gasification step. Basically, it consists of a degradation chamber where the syngas is heated by a plasma torch. The plasma plume provides a high temperature gas (around 5000K) to the system and enables heating of the incoming stream (above 1300K) and also generates high temperature zones (above 1600 K) inside the device. Due to both high temperature and long residence times of the syngas in the vessel, cracking of the tars occurs. Finally, the species released are mainly CO and H 2 , leading to an increase in the Lower Heating Value of the syngas. The work presented here describes the design of a high temperature gasification system assisted by thermal plasma. It was performed using a CFD computation implemented with a full chemical model for the thermal degradation of tars. The objectives were to understand the aerodynamic behavior of the vessel and to propose enhancement in its design. We present here some results of this study.

Plasma gasification is an efficient and environmentally responsible form of thermal treatment of wastes. In the plasma gasification process, extremely high temperature gases are used to break down the molecular structure of complex carboncontaining materials — such as municipal solid waste (MSW), tires, hazardous waste and sewage sludge — and convert them into synthesis gas (syngas) containing hydrogen and carbon monoxide that can be used to generate power or other sustainable sources of energy. Gasification occurs in an oxygen starved environment so the waste is gasified, not incinerated.

Ireland has been called the Silicon Valley of Europe. Like the Silicon Valley in the U.S. it has a large amount of waste created by the Microchip Industry. Ireland is also an agricultural country. A large amount of bio-waste has been stockpiled in Ireland. This is the result of recent outbreaks/epidemics of animal diseases in the EU. The current growth industry of Ireland is the chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing industry. Nine of the top ten pharmaceutical companies are manufacturing in Ireland. Wastes from these industries are often toxic and hazardous. They can contain large amounts of combustible organic compounds depending on their source. Since Ireland is an island it has special problems disposing of waste. Waste comes in as products as packaging and it doesn’t go out. The emerging solution is Incineration. Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) can contain many forms of metal and chemistry under normal conditions. When a large amount of the primary industry of a region is chemistry based and agricultural based there is the probability of more than usual amount of toxic residue in the refuse. The ash from incineration contains items such as dioxins & heavy metals that are environmental toxins. Using a Plasma Pyrolysis Vitrification (PPV) process the volume of the resultant ash from incineration can be further reduced by as much as 30 to 1. A PPV process has an added advantage of giving an incineration facility the capability of rendering ash safe for reuse as construction material and as a side benefit reclaiming many valuable elemental components of the ash. The PPV plant can be used to destroy waste directly and economically as long as the gate fees are high. One byproduct of incinerator ash smelting/destruction using a PPV process is CO gas, a combustible fuel resource for power generation. Precious metals may also be reclaimed as an alloy material by-product.

Plasma Resource Recovery (PRR) is a revolutionary technology that can treat virtually any type of waste by combining gasification with vitrification. Vitrification produces inert slag that can be used as a construction material. Gasification produces a fuel gas containing carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H 2 ), used for cogeneration of electricity and steam. The plasma fired eductor which is the core technology of the PRR system is presently being used commercially on a cruise ship at a scale of 5 TPD. The capabilities of the PRR technology have been demonstrated in a pilot plant, at a rate of up to 2 TPD of various types of waste. Because of the high intensity of the plasma flame and the reduced amounts of gases produced in a gasification system, compared to traditional combustion systems, the PRR system is typically very compact. As such, the PRR technology opens the door for a decentralized, small scale approach to waste management.