Method and apparatus for ionizing all the elements in a complex substance such as radioactive waste and separating some of the elements from the other elements

A method of separating from each other a portion of species from the other species in a feedstock material comprising:

• a. generating a product plasma that is composed principally of species of elements of the feedstock material by injecting said feedstock material into a volume plasma processor equipped with a toroidal containment vessel and with at least one additional containment vessel having an exhaust pipe with cooled louvers, wherein said product plasma has a surface,
• b. diverting said product plasma containing species of the feedstock into said additional containment vessel before any repeated cycling of the species of said product plasma between the plasma surface and the deposition stages lining the toroidal containment vessel,
• c. causing the diverted product plasma to move along parallel magnetic fields of said additional containment vessel,
• d. controlling said diverted product plasma to a temperature range from about 10,000.degree. C. to about 50,000.degree. C. by at least one means of radiation cooling to lower the temperature and of raising the temperature with electromagnetic wave heaters,
• e. separating from the diverted plasma some of the species of elements from each other on the basis of their differences in ionization potential, such that species with ionization potentials below about 8 ev are maintained in an ionized state and continue to be confined by said parallel magnetic fields, while species with ionization potential above about 8 ev recombine and lands on deposition stages lining wall of said additional containment vessel or enter said exhaust pipe and strike said cooled louvers in said exhaust pipe,
• f. collecting landed species on deposition stages of said additional containment vessel and on louvers terminating said exhaust pipe, and
• g. removing from the deposition stages and louvers the separated collected species.

A method of separating from each other a portion of species from the other species in feedstock material comprising:

• a. generating a product plasma that is composed principally of species of elements of the feedstock material by injecting said feedstock material into a volume plasma processor equipped with a toroidal containment vessel and with more than one additional containment vessel, having an exhaust pipe with louvers equipped with means to separate specific species of elements from each other, wherein said product plasma has a center and a surface,
• b. maintaining most of said product plasma separated from said walls of said said toroidal containment vessel by magnetic fields while identifying the species of elements and their location in the product plasma by means of a spectrometer,
• c. choosing one of said additional containment vessels for collecting the specific species identified in an edge region of the plasma, then,
• d. diverting a portion of said product plasma in the edge region into at least one said additional containment vessel equipped to separate the species identified in the edge region,
• e. causing the diverted product plasma to move along said magnetic fields of the chosen said additional containment vessel,
• f. separating species in the diverted product plasma from the other species as the plasma moves along said magnetic fields of said additional containment vessel wherein the separating of the species from each other is based on their different ionization potentials, interactions, rf ponderomotive forces, or charge exchange neutralization,
• g. collecting said other species of said product plasma that lands on deposition stages lining walls of said additional containment vessel, and on said louvers terminating said exhaust pipes, and
• h. removing from the deposition stages and louvers separated collected species.

Apparatus which is a large volume plasma processor for separating from each other a portion of species from the other species in a feedstock material comprising:

• a. a toroidal containment vessel with walls,
• b. a gas inlet, to supply a generating gas,
• c. means to create ionization in the generating gas,
• d. means for generating a magnetic field substantially parallel to the walls of said toroidal containment vessel and substantially filling said toroidal containment vessel,
• e. means for generating a toroidal current which is substantially parallel to said toroidal magnetic field and generates a magnetic field, a poloidal field, perpendicular to the toroidal field,
• f. means for heating the generating gas to produce a high temperature, low density ionized gas plasma with a temperature of at least 500,000.degree. C.,
• g. means for controlling a space between said high temperature, low density ionized gas plasma and the walls of the containment vessel,
• h. means for injecting a portion of the feedstock material at a velocity into said high temperature, low density ionized gas plasma, which is identified as a product plasma,
• i. means for rapidly increasing the heating means to overcome radiation losses,
• j. means for rapidly stabilizing said product plasma, to initially maintain the space between the plasma anti the containment vessel walls,
• k. means for moving a portion of said product plasma, across said space between the plasma and the containment vessel walls to deposit the ionized and unionized species of elements in the feedstock material on deposition stages lining the walls of the containment vessel,
• l. means for modifying the magnetic field by the addition of diverting magnetic fields to move the plasma into more than one additional containment vessels lined with deposition stages, and
• m means for removing the deposited species from deposition stages.