Combined Plasma, Electromagnetic, and Laser Technologies for Creating Waste-Free Industries of a New Technological Structure

The paper considers directions for the development of waste-free, large-scale industrial technologies by setting up new technological routs, including wide use of electrical technologies of a new generation and excluding formation of any industrial waste as a matter of principle. The electrical technologies of a new generation are technologies based on the use of generators and flows of technological plasmas in chemical and metallurgical industries, electromagnetic fields of various frequency ranges for the synthesis and processing of metal and ceramic materials, and technological lasers for, for instance, separation of isotopes and for making micro articles for nanotechnology and micrometallurgy applications. All these technologies have become theoretically and technically feasible in combination with purification technologies for liquid and gaseous raw material preparation for the nuclear fuel cycle (NFC), specifically, ion-exchange sorption on synthetic organic ion-exchange resins, fluid extraction, rectification, or sorption on granular fluoride sorbents, which all provide a tool for attaining any level of purification of raw materials. In many processes discussed in the paper, extraction, sorption and rectification can be directly incorporated in electrical technologies, i.e. this means combined technologies for the synthesis, separation, and purification of the products, such as plasma rectification, plasma sorption, etc.

The paper considers a series of such scientifically and technically advanced but still uncommercialized electrical technologies which should form the basis for new environmentally friendly, waste-free industries of a new technological structure. As examples, we focus on several plasma, electromagnetic, and laser technologies, operating on raw materials refined by the above-mentioned purification technologies, including the new technology for the purification of gaseous industrial emissions. These waste-free electrical technologies for the production and processing of inorganic materials were developed for the nuclear industry in the USSR. These are mostly physical technologies insensitive to the chemical formula of the produced or processed materials, and, therefore, they can be used without any problems in other branches of industry.