Destroying intractable gas and waste using Plasma arc technology

[evant]

I am looking at envirnmentally and economically better ways to process intractable waste in the oil industry. What about the possibilty of utilizing plasma arc technology? Supposedly a gas or fluid is injected into a chamber at 8000c where the plasma arc (argon gas ignited via electric current between 2 electrodes) destroys or rips apart the molecular structure of H2S etc, treats produced water and effluent. Has anyone had experience or heard of this type of technology? Would it be useful in the upstream or downstream oil industry?

 

[owg]

Check out

http://www.plascoenergygroup.com/

HAZOP at

http://www.curryhydrocarbons.ca

 

[tgmcg]

I worked for a mfg of such systems for a while.

Plasma arc systems are basically incinerators. The plasma arc is basically a huge sparkplug. So, if your objective is to treat hydrocarbon wastes, then you will require the same offgas treatment system as used for a conventional incinerator, and will have the same issues regarding mercury, furans and dioxins as do normal incinerators.

However, the plasma arc technology does offer advantages in handling large chucks of metallic, mineral or ceramic materials, as the plasma arc will melt or vitrify just about anything.

For aqueous organic wastes you should consider supercritical water oxidation technology, especially those systems employing transpiring-wall reactor technology.. This process is very efficienct at destroying organics, but might be limited by the amount of inorganics present (5-10% w/w is probably a good upper limit on inorganics)