Plasma Technology in Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Industries: Research to Development Opportunities

Plasmas are partially ionized gases, which besides ions and electrons, constitutes of chemical radicals and excited particles. Most of 90% our universe is in plasma state. In the last decade, new application areas of plasma chemistry and plasma processing have been emerged, such as plasma modifications, plasma ignition and combustions. In the same manner, plasma technology has revolutionized the oil industry. Plasma technology provides a number of key benefits; it has low environment emissions, it does not generate any greenhouse gases and most importantly decreases the economic costs. Plasma technology has established new concept in as plasma spray, plasma gasification and plasma welding. In search of an alternative source of reducing power consumption, plasma chemistry has proposed new methods for producing H2 and H2-rich gases in fuel-cell technology and conversion of natural gas into syngas (CO-H2). In addition, plasma has been able to remove toxic pollutants such as SOx and NOx. The use of plasma technology in order to replace it with existing technology topics plasma torch, plasma welding, gas formation, erosion and corrosion protection, furnaces and boilers, water treatment, process chemicals and industrial wastes, removal of toxic pollutants, and etc. could be useful in increasing efficiency and saving energy. Since the plasma technology is largely undeveloped, so the potential to do it would be too much.