In-flight thermal treatment of soda-lime-silica glass powders for glass production by argon–oxygen induction thermal plasmas

Abstract

In order to investigate the plasma–particle energy exchange dynamics and optimize the plasma discharge and particle parameters during in-flight thermal treatment of soda-lime-silica glass powders, a plasma–particle interaction model was developed. This model solved the conservation equations to predict the plasma temperature and flow fields, and then calculated the injected individual particle trajectories and temperature histories, and the particle source terms to take into account the plasma–particle interaction. It was noticed that particle injection significantly reduced the plasma temperature around the centerline of the torch and hence decreased the heat transfer to particles at higher carrier gas flow-rate and powder feed-rate. As a result the size and composition of quenched particles were affected significantly by the above factors. The simulated results were consistent with those of experiment, which provided valuable guidelines in optimizing the plasma discharge and particle parameters for the efficient thermal treatment of soda-lime-silica glass particles.