Thermal Plasma Sources: How Well are They Adopted to Process Needs?

Thermal plasma devices have evolved over the years from an aerospace R&D tool for the simulation of re-entry of space vehicles into powerful sources for a wide range of applications including materials processing, nano-powder synthesis and deposition of functional coatings, waste treatment and biomass gasification. With the development of full scale industrial applications, it is increasingly apparent that the plasma source is an integral part of the process, and that the success of a technology depends to a large extent on the way the plasma source satisfies the process needs. In this paper, a short review is presented of a selected number of commercially available plasma sources that are using DC and/or RF inductively coupled plasma torch technologies.