Material processing

A material treatment process, and particularly such a process for the destruction of waste material. The process involves pyrolysis of waste material within a plasma torch and a hot zone which receives the material stream from the torch. Waste material is injected into the torch as a fine spray and/or as a gas, and the direction of injection is generally transverse to the direction of movement of the plasma through the torch. The location of the injection is such that the waste material is injected directly into the core of the plasma. The hot zone is of a length such as to ensure complete pyrolysis of the material, and that zone is immediately followed by a cooling zone in which the material is subjected to very rapid quenching. The material stream entering the cooling zone is at a temperature above that at which CO in the material stream tends to re-form into CO2 in the material stream includes particulate carbon which is used to absorb residual toxic compounds when the material is subjected to an alkaline environment within the cooling zone and/or a scrubber following that zone.