On-line diagnostic of the gaseous effluent of a fly ash treatment plasma process: Set-up of a chemical balance.

Plasma processes are today considered as one of the most promising techniqu es for the treatment of industrial or domestic waste incineration for they are fast and cheap in terms of energy consumption. The most important part of this paper relies on the development of a clean-up and GC/MS analysis pr otocol for fly ash volatile organic compounds identification, and on the mo nitoring of metallic oxides and chlorides evaporation during the plasma tre atment by optical emission spectroscopy. Thermal and chemical balances were evaluated in order to optimize the process, also in regards to environment al regulation constraints.