A review on plasma gasification for solid waste disposal

In this paper a brief review on plasma gasification as a new technology for solid waste disposal is presented. Plasma gasification systems can handle not only biomass but also harmful wastes which can be completely converted into outputs having considerable amounts of useful energy content. There are a variety of plasma gasification systems which have different design and operation characteristics with the utilization of a great range of fuels. The operation and performance evaluation of a plasma gasification system in turn is specified by the required outputs. There is a need for a common approach as a function of fuel, system and process characteristics. Furthermore thermodynamic analysis of plasma gasification process is still one of the current research topics due to the missing general theoretical treatment and terminology compatible for all of the systems. A critical analysis on the available literature in this respect provides a solid contribution to the state of art. An experimental research on the design and performance of a plasma gasification system “MCw gasifier” is on site to fill the determined major gaps of the literature which are outlined in this paper.