Plasma Assisted Combustion, Gasification, and Pollution Control

This book appearance is a logical development of the research activity in a relatively new field named Plasma Assisted Combustion (PAC) and is the first attempt to collect the most valuable contributions to the field from different research groups all over the globe. The first practical applications of different plasma sources for ignition and combustion enhancement date back to the 1960s and 1970s. The first PAC conference was organized by the Editor in 1989 in the former Soviet Union. At this time, the PAC community is relatively well organized with an annual International Workshop and Exhibition on Plasma Assisted Combustion (IWEPAC), now converted into the International Conference on Plasma Assisted Technologies or ICPAT starting in 2012, and special issues in the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science on the topic of on Plasma Assisted Combustion. This two-volume work is one of the first projects of the newly established International Plasma Technology Center (IPTC) intended to provide, in Volume 1, a description of different plasma sources especially designed for PAC and, in Volume 2, to describe PAC processes that are under development or used industrially. If successful, we plan to publish new editions every two-three years depending on progress in this field. The basic mission of the IPTC is to promote scientific, educational, and charitable activities. This book is an example of organizing an international team of authors to promote education in the focus areas of the disciplines addressed. There are over 30 authors for Volume 1, who hail from five countries: Czech Republic, Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. A second volume will be produced in the future. The IPTC will gratefully welcome new authors in this endeavor to aid our mission of keeping abreast of new developments in the field of plasma assisted combustion, gasification, and pollution control and to update the literature to include new information through additional or revised volumes. This book is intended to be used as a textbook at the senior or first-year graduate level by students from all engineering and physical science disciplines, by PhD students, researchers, and as a reference source by in-service engineers and other researchers. Basic information on plasma physics and the accompanying physical processes important in PAC are contained in Volume 1. Devices, technologies, current state, and future works are placed in Volume 2. This book does not contain derivations from first principles of some of the more advanced material from plasma physics, electrical engineering, or materials science. Such material can be found in graduate texts. This is also not an encyclopedia.