Application of the three phase AC plasma generator for drug destruction

Summary form only given. Plasma treatment of hazardous waste appears to be one of the most promising methods of waste destruction which will be available on the market in the next few years. The introduction of plasma into a combustion system reduces the ignition delay time and increases the burning rate and completeness of burn out waste mixtures. Plasma combustion can be used for treatment of the other types of waste. One such application of the plasma combustion technique can be drug destruction. Plasma treatment allows to create fast, portable and complete method for destruction of the stockpiles of the confiscated drugs. In this paper characteristics and capabilities of the pilot unit for such destruction are discussed. Such a system must be capable of destroying a large amount of marijuana, opium and other drugs in the different locations. Chemical formulas of the most common drugs are: C/sub 17/H/sub 13/O/sub 3/N-morphine, C/sub 19/H/sub 21/O/sub 3/N-debain and C/sub 18/H/sub 21/O/sub 3/N-codeine. All these components do not require high temperatures for destruction. They usually can be completely destroyed at 300/spl deg/C. While burning, these substances will produce their own energy-12000-18000 kJ/kg. Exhaust gases also appeared not to be a problem because there will be no toxic components in them. In order to determine parameters of the commercial unit, a pilot system was constructed. This system is based on the 1 MW three phase AC plasma generator designed in IPE RAS. A special combustion chamber together with the wet scrubber and injection system was designed and built at SUI. All components of the device are described. Tests performed with this systems show that complete destruction of treated product was achieved.