Founded in 1992, Europlasma is a French Group specialized in clean technologies and renewable energy production. The Europlasma Group is made up of four companies and 260 employees. The company designs and manufactures plasma heating systems which high T° can have an application in steel making industry, waste destruction, high T° gasification, charcoal power plant starter. Based on 15 years experience in industrial waste plasma processing and the know how transferred from EADS, Europlasma has developed a robust and efficient waste plasma gasification process.  

CHO POWER 

The Cho-Power is a new concept for generating energy through waste using the well known gasification method, enhanced by recent developments in plasma-torch technology. The CHO-Power process uses gasification to transform waste into a refined BioSynGas thanks to the high temperatures achieved using plasma torches. This gas is then used to drive a gas turbine/motor to generate electricity, with end-to-end electrical efficiency reaching levels of up to 40%.

This allows CHO-Power plants to provide high levels of efficiency with minimal environmental impact (ultra-low emissions, no ash and very little end residue; small, inoffensive installations more readily accepted by local people; and complementary technology that fits well into a rational waste-management chain).

 The first CHO-POWER unit at Morcenx (France) is scheduled for commissioning in late 2009. The unit, the only example of this technology in the world, and three other major initiatives in Canada, Portugal and England are evidence of the Group’s ambition to become a key player in the market for renewable energy generation from waste and biomass.

TURBO PLASMA

Benefiting from its over 15 years’ experience in plasma heating systems, Europlasma has developed a new system, called TurboPlasma, aimed at improving gasification units. TurboPlasma is the Europlasma’s new ground-breaking process, developed to maximize generation of renewable energy. TurboPlasma is a second stage thermal treatment process that can be adapted to any type of gasification technology. The advantage of the TurboPlasma process is that it helps obtain better quality syngas and eliminates tars. TurboPlasma is a gas cleaning system, enabling the removal of tars from syngas and converting CxHy/CO2 into CO/H2 by cracking the molecules with the plasma’s high enthalpy. TurboPlasma is mainly composed of a plasma torch and is fed with the syngas produced by the gasifier. The plasma torch raises the syngas temperature from 850 °C to 1400 °C, improving syngas purity and increasing the process yield by 3-6% net (torch consumption included). Thanks to this process, more CO/H2 is obtained, increasing the energy production. In addition, the tars that are problematic for gas engines are eliminated. 

TurboPlasma is a patented process and an excellent addition to the gas cleaning process.