Spectroscopic study of hazardous elements evaporation in the treatment of waste by transferred arcs

In this work we carried out experiments about the evaporation phenomena of hazardous elements during the vitrification of waste in a furnace, with a system of twin plasma torches operated at an average power of 30 kW. Evaporation data was obtained from the emission spectra in the range 350-1100 nm, observed in the furnace during its operation. The species concentrations in the plasma were obtained by comparison of the experimental spectra with synthetic ones generated by computer. We present the obtained results for the evaporation of Co, Cs, and Zn for several operational parameters and different amounts of oxygen in the furnace atmosphere. Comparison of the experimental data with the calculated predictions in chemical equilibrium was also made. (authors)