Incinerators

[thesameguy]

What do you know about them?

[overpowered]

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/uncyclopedia/images/2/2a/Beavis-fire.gif/revision/latest?cb=20100516070521

[Yw-slayer]

HK is having a massive debate about one at the moment.

http://www.timeout.com.hk/big-smog/features/67917/dissecting-the-shek-kwu-chau-incinerator-debate.html

I am clueless as to the relative merits of the technologies, but plasma sounds cool. Plus how can you argue with this?

1499

[thesameguy]

Plasma gasification would be awesome, but I'm not sure one can build that from an oil drum in their garage.

I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong.

[Yw-slayer]

The question is whether one can build a plasma rifle.

[thesameguy]

Does that come before or after the incinerator?

[Yw-slayer]

Doesn't matter as long as one gets built.

[speedpimp]

Yeah that photoshopped gap was a little too obvious.

[tigeraid]

"It burns things."

http://www.startrekfreedom.com/wiki/images/4/42/Pakled.jpg

[thesameguy]

Yeah, I definitely do not need computer things.

[Dicknose]

So are you going to be more specific or are we just all going with anything in scale from a burning drum to nuclear incinerators?
I worked with a guy who had a couple of patents on nuclear incinerators, mostly about using them to dispose of nuclear waste by transmuting into elements that a valuable. Not a cheap way to produce say gold, but hey if you are paying to get ride of waste why not make it into something useful.

[Yw-slayer]

Seems more effective (albeit more expensive) than burying it underground for one MEELLLIIOONNN years.

[thesameguy]

I want to burn trash - not in my house, but in a, well, it doesn't matter. If I could recapture some energy as electricity that would be great. If I can't, I would settle for capturing some heat at a prescribed level. End goal is serving nachos and having a way to dispose of the serving trays and keep the fake cheese hot. I am not joking.

I want to understand what temps are involved for adequate incineration so I can get a sense of safety concerns, and I want a sense of what the ash output is like. That article YW posts suggested that there is a 70% reduction in mass, leaving 30% as ash and temps are in the 800 deg C (IIRC) range. Does ash go down with temp? Or with trash contents? Can temps be adjusted based on what's in the trash? Like, if you only need to burn paper can you do it at a lower temperature? If you only need to burn plastic, must it be hotter? I don't think I am going to buy compressed argon, so I don't think plasma gasification is realistic. But a burn barrel? Definitely achievable. What's in the middle?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incineration#Burn_barrel

I also want to understand what's involved in loading one... like, is there a way to load it while it's lit? If not, does it have to cool down before it can be reloaded (thinking spontaneous combustion)?

The output is heat, obviously, what useful ways are there to recapture heat energy? Obviously a steam engine. Can a Peltier device work backwards? Produce electricity from a heat differential?

I ain't no scientist.