Modeling of the Coal Gasification Processes in a Hybrid Plasma Torch

The major advantages of plasma treatment systems are cost effectiveness and technical efficiency. A new efficient electrodeless 1-MW hybrid plasma torch for waste disposal and coal gasification is proposed. This product merges several solutions such as the known inductive-type plasma torch, innovative reverse-vortex (RV) reactor and the recently developed nonequilibrium plasma pilot and plasma chemical reactor. With the use of the computational-fluid-dynamics-computational method, preliminary 3-D calculations of heat exchange in a 1-MW plasma generator operating with direct vortex and RV have been conducted at the air flow rate of 100 g/s. For the investigated mode and designed parameters, reduction of the total wall heat transfer for the reverse scheme is about 65 kW, which corresponds to an increase of the plasma generator efficiency by approximately 6.5%. This new hybrid plasma torch operates as a multimode, high power plasma system with a wide range of plasma feedstock gases and turn down ratio, and offers convenient and simultaneous feeding of several additional reagents into the discharge zone.