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plasma recycling plus vapor deposition

Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 5:08 am
by kunkmiester
Plasma recycling basically consists of heating something to plasma levels, so that you can electrically separate the ions and thus get pure materials. It also totally destroys organic material, but that's not important to the story.

With some tweaking, I'd imagine that vapor deposition could be controlled to the point where you could run it much like a current 3D printer, but by controlling the particular element being used, you're also building just about anything you could well please.

What do you guys think?

Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 6:30 am
by Giorgio
Interesting thoughts. Maybe far in the future it might have some practical applications, but right now state of the art plasma waste disposal is just barely sufficient to get a suitable quality syngas out of the plasma.

For more info you might want to check Plasco website. As far as I know they are the only one that have a fully functional "Municipal Waste to Plasma" plant:

http://www.plascoenergygroup.com/

They made a pretty big investment for now and they are trying hard to make this technology work. Too bad that after 2 years they are still struggling to get the plant in a fully functional state...

Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 10:40 pm
by WizWom
CVD is used to make the current crop of high-temperature superconductor tapes in just the method you suggest - basically laying down each layer of the ceramic in atomic thicknesses.

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 6:24 pm
by jsbiff
WizWom wrote:CVD is used to make the current crop of high-temperature superconductor tapes in just the method you suggest - basically laying down each layer of the ceramic in atomic thicknesses.
Am I correct in thinking that, for mass-produced items for which we already have fairly simple processes (like cast-metal tools [hammers, wrenches, screw drivers, etc], rolled sheet metal, extruded pipes and beams, etc), that it will still make sense to use those simpler processes than vapor deposition - that is, that you can produce more product faster and cheaper with the 'old' processes.

Put another way, that vapor deposition only makes sense for either very small quantities (like making a prototype from a CAD model), or for the types of high-tech products where it is really the only practical way to make what you want at the super-high-quality needed (like those superconductor tapes mentioned above)?

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 6:30 pm
by kunkmiester
Or when your doodad which fits in a cargo container is the only thing on the butt end of the world/solar system that can produce what you need exactly how you need it. Or if you have one in your garage built from plans and so you find it easier to feed in some scrap and save on buying it.

I don't think this method would work well for plastics or organic stuff, so you won't be able to just crank out anything. It will however break out most designs--a lot can be built in your garage, including another fabber. At the end of the day, mass production simply becomes a cheaper way to make stuff, and intellectual property becomes king over the ability to make stuff, even something like a Cray, or tank.

Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2010 10:35 pm
by Stoney3K
kunkmiester wrote:Or when your doodad which fits in a cargo container is the only thing on the butt end of the world/solar system that can produce what you need exactly how you need it. Or if you have one in your garage built from plans and so you find it easier to feed in some scrap and save on buying it.
"Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."

I mean, you seriously don't expect me to bring a kettle on board a super-high-tech spacecraft? :mrgreen: