DEVELOPMENT OF WASTE TREATMENT BY THERMAL PLASMA TECHNOLOGY

With the rapid development of China's economy, the annual output of solid waste has increased significantly. After incineration and capacity reduction of solid waste, a large amount of incineration fly ash is still produced, which contains heavy metals, dioxins (PCDD/PCDFs) and other harmful components. Pouring the incineration residue in the landfill not only occupies a large amount of valuable land resources, but also has many problems such as secondary pollution risk to soil and groundwater, so it is urgent to develop new advanced waste treatment technologies with good environmental protection and social benefits. In the early stage of the development of aerospace technology, low-temperature thermal plasma technology has been used for the study of the heat protection of the head of the spacecraft in the space re-entry process and the research on the interference of plasma sheath to radio communication. Afterwards, the application of thermal plasma technology shifted from aerospace application to civil use, and treating waste in the environmental protection field is one of its main application scenarios. Starting from the early destruction of scrapped weapons, chemical warfare agents, low- and medium-level radioactive wastes, and now the development of plasma technology has become a distinctive advanced technology in organic and inorganic wastes treatment technologies. This paper introduces the principle and characteristics of plasma waste treatment technology, reviews the development process of low-temperature thermal plasma technology in the treatment of solid waste, overviews the progress of low-temperature thermal plasma treatment of solid waste technology in the field of basic research and engineering application, focuses on the analysis of the problems existing in the application of plasma solid waste treatment technology, and puts forward development suggestions, so as to mourn the pioneer of plasma science and technology in China, our most respectful Prof. Chengkang WU, the academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and his advising to the fundamental research for waste treatment by thermal plasma technology.