Nowadays, transferred type arc plasma torches have been widely present in industrial applications, in particular, using melting pool of electrically conducting materials such as arc furnace, welding and volume reduction of radioactive wastes. In these applications, the melting pools are normally employed as an anode, thus, heat flux distributions on anode melting pool need to be characterized for optimum design of melting pool system. For this purpose, we revisited the one-dimensional model of the anode boundary layer of arcs and solved governing equations numerically by using Runge-Kutta method. In addition, the direct melting process of non-combustible wastes in the crucibles were discussed with the calculation results.

This facility was developed to investigate the characteristics of metal oxide and to secure operational technology through hydrogen supply to 100 kW capacity transferred arc plasma torch and melting furnace under anoxic conditions. Besides, the emission of pollutants generated during operation was minimized by burning the exhaust gases in the next combustion chamber and by applying a SNCR, a scrubber, etc. The main target object was determined as a metal oxides generated as radioactive wastes when dismantling the nuclear power plant. The metal alloy was produced by supplying hydrogen during the melting process of the metal oxide. The reaction equation is as follows: Fe + M(Metal)On + H2(Gas) → FeM + Slag + H2O In this paper, operating conditions according to the melting temperature and hydrogen supply with iron and metal oxides were investigated, and the chemical characteristics of the alloyed metal and Slag were analyzed. The result of this study can be used as fundamental data for the treatment and disposal of metal wastes.