Technology » Process Details: MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) or other waste material is fed into a vertical shaft reactor by means of air-tight feeding hoppers, passing on its way down through three zones:
In the lowest part of the reactor, in the melting chamber, the inorganic waste components that reached this zone, are melted and vitrified by the high temperature plasma jets.
Hot gases rise from the melting chamber toward the gasification zone, as a counterflow to the downward moving mass of waste. Oxidizing agents introduced at this stage cause gasification of the char (carbonaceous residues of pyrolysis).
In the next zone up, the pyrolysis zone, the putrescible organic waste components are converted into pyrolytic gas that together with the gasification products form the Syngas, which is evacuated from the reactor to be used in the subsequent stages of the process – energy recovery.
Israeli firm Environmental Energy Resources (EER) has announced that it has developed a new technology, plasma gasification melting technology (PGM), to safely dispose of low- and medium-level nuclear waste.  Extremely high temperatures are used to turn the waste into a mildly radioactive glass-like substance, which can be used as a building material.  The process also releases an extremely hot mixture of gases that can be used to power steam turbines, generating electricity. The company claims that 70% of this electricity is used to drive the PGM process, while 30% is available as exportable energy.