Arc plasmas

Plasma arc cutting Plasma-arc devices Plasma-arc furnace Plasma arc spray Plasma arc welding... 

Newer coal-based methods of acetylene manufacture under development include the AVCO process, based on the reaction of coal in a hydrogen plasma. Finely divided coal is passed through a hydrogen plasma arc generating temperature gradients of up to 15,000 K. About 67% of the coal is consumed, yielding char and acetylene in concentrations up to 16%. An energy requirement of 9.5 kW h/kg acetylene has been reported (33). 

As with a plasma-arc furnace, various gases and pneumatically conveyed soHds have been added to the various types of a-c open-arc furnaces to decrease alloy loss, to stabilize the arc, and to decrease the noise level, but with mixed commercial success. 

Argon, helium, and their mixtures with other gases are used as the working fluids in plasma arc devices for producing plasma jets with temperatures in excess of 50,000 K. These devices are used for cutting metals and for spray coating of refractory alloys and ceramics (qv) (see Plasma technology). 

Pulsed spark sources, in which the material to be analyzed is part of one electrode, are used for semiquantitative analyses. The numerous and complex processes involved in spark discharges have been studied in detail by time- and space-resolved spectroscopy (94). The temperature of d-c arcs, into which the analyte is introduced as an aerosol in a flowing carrier gas, eg, argon, is approximately 10,000 K. Numerous experimental and theoretical studies of stabilized plasma arcs are available (79,95). 

Treatment Rotary furnace type Plasma Arc Ceattifuge... 

Residuals Produced The plasma arc process produces ash which may require post treatment to make it suitable for disposal. The wet, scrubber blowdown may require treatment prior to disposal. 

It can be welded by resistance, tungsten-inert gas (TIG), plasma arc and electron beam techniques. To protect the metal from attack by air, resistance welding is carried out under water and the TIG method is best performed in a chamber of argon. The latter three methods produce ductile welds that equal the base metal in most of its characteristics. 

Plasma-Arc Deposition. A plasma-arc is a high-intensity, low-frequency arc, generated between two electrodes by either direct or alternating current which requires a large amount of power and costly equipment. 

Plasma-arc diamond deposition is produced at a higher pressure than in a microwave plasma (0.15 to 1 atm). At such pressure, the average distance traveled by the species between collisions (mean free path) is reduced and, as a result, molecules and ions collide more frequently and heat more readily. 

DC Plasma-Arc Equipment. A typical direct-current (DC) plasma-arc equipment is shown schematically in Fig. 

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