The microwave plasma burner produced the hightemperature and large-volume flames by injecting CH4 into the
microwave plasma torch generated in air. Also, the combustion
efficiency obtained from GC analysis was more than 98%,
depending on mixing ways of air and CH4. Fig. 3 showed
the significant temperature increase of the CH4-augmented
microwave plasma burner relative to those of the microwave
plasma torch and CH4 fuel flame. Generally, production of
large-volume and high-temperature microwave plasma flame
by just increasing microwave power up to power levels of
several tens of kilowatts is difficult or may be impossible. In
this context, the CH4-augmented microwave plasma burner is
significant and provided power level of approximately 20 kW
at 1.2-kW microwave plasma torch from our another experimental result. It is confirmed that NO2 produced from air discharge in Fig. 6 is significantly suppressed by CH4 injection.
From the preliminary experimental data that the CH4 microwave plasma burner implies possibility for bulky treatment of
waste gas streams and for thermal source such as incineration,
thermal wind drying, etc