[en] The CEA is studying the development of processes with a sufficiently large operating range in order to propose a general treatment system and make it possible to absorb a significant quantity of radioactive liquid stocks awaiting treatment around the world. A solution may be the use of submerged plasma into which the organic liquids would be injected. Current research has demonstrated that such a technique may enable the instantaneous and complete destruction of liquids with a wide variety of constituents, such as chlorine, fluorine, or phosphorus. The ELIPSE process was designed based on the results of this research. In this process, an arc plasma torch is submerged in the core of an aqueous solution. The submersion solution offers many advantages: quenching and cleaning of combustion gases; filtering of the particles they contain; and cooling maintained for the entire process, which guarantees excellent corrosion control. An advantage of this type of design is that the gas treatment system can be reduced to a demister-condenser followed by a simple safety filter, thereby offering the additional advantage of an extremely compact treatment system. This design also allows the ELIPSE process to become by this way an embeddable process if required. The present paper will first describe the state of the art concerning this concept and secondly research currently conducted using the ELIPSE process to destroy a wide variety of liquids such as tributylphosphate, trichloroethylene, and perfluoro-polyether with an efficiency of over 99% at rates of several liters per hour. The apparent absence of any corrosion observed in the treatment system would indicate that, following optimization, a universal and compact process may soon be available, which may be transportable and dedicated to the treatment of orphan waste products awaiting treatment. (authors)

[en] This work deals with incineration of organic liquid wastes using an oxygen thermal plasma jet, submerged in water. The results presented here concern incineration of trichloroethylene (TCE). During a trial run, the CO₂ and CO content in the exhaust gas is continuously measured; samples taken periodically from the solution are analyzed by appropriate methods: total organic carbon and chlorine content are measured. Process efficiency during tests with a few L/h of TCE is given by the mineralization rate. The trapping rate of chlorine as HCl is near 100 %. The TCE destruction and removal efficiency, measured by MS/GC, is better than 99.9999 %. A simplified kinetic model of gas quenching was constructed from a single-phase plug-flow reactor model taking into account 14 species and 34 reactions. It satisfies the requirements of heat balance and major components analysis, and reveals the major role of the OH radical on the concentrations of CO as well as HCl and/or Cl₂ in the off-gas stream. (authors)

[en] Incineration of wastes, widely and increasingly used nowadays, produces residues, mainly bottom ash and filter fly ash. Fly ash is especially problematic because of its high content in heavy metals easily drawn out. Thermal processes, based mainly on electrical arc processes, are used to melt the residues at high temperature and convert them into a relatively inert glass. Consequently, to improve the process and get a glass satisfying regulation, control of heavy metals (lead, zinc, cadmium and chromium...) volatility during plasma fly ash melting and vitrification is needed and basic data concerning vaporization of these metals are required. According to the volatility of these compounds observed during vitrification of fly ash, a predictive model has been used to simulate the elimination of Pb, Zn and S from the melt as a function of time and temperature for a system including chlorides, oxides and sulfates. The objective of this work was the experimental study of heavy metals volatility using optical emission spectroscopy. A twin torch plasma system, mounted above a cold crucible with Ar (or Ar + O2) as plasma gas, has been used. The crucible was filled with synthetic glass in which known amounts of metallic salts were added to obtain the same chemical composition as used in the model. From spectral lines intensities of Ar, the plasma temperature profiles along the observation direction has been first established, before using ratios of spectral lines of Ar and metallic (Pb, Zn) or Cl vapors to reach the evolution of the elements concentrations above the melt. Off-gases have been analyzed by mass spectrometry. The influence of the atmosphere (Ar or Ar + O2) above the crucible has been studied and differences in elements behaviors have been pointed out. The results of the spectroscopic measurements have been compared to the ones issued of modeling, in order to validate our model of vaporization