Cold Plasma is a synergy of 3 different innovative technologies in the field of cleaning highly polluted process waters

• Plasma process impact
• Acoustic-vortex process
• Hydrodynamic cavitation

The electric discharge is glowing between the electrodes inside the stream of the water under treatment. Some amount of water molecules are dissociated into ions in the discharge plasma and become active agents which disintegrate organic compounds and drive metal ions toward forming insoluble salts.

A non-equilibrium non-stationary plasma is  generated by  a pulsating electric discharge. The pulsed discharge creates UV radiation at the gas-liquid interface and converts water molecules into reactive oxygen species – ozone, atomic oxygen, peroxides and hydroxyl radical (OH). They are powerful non-selective oxidising agents that react very quickly with organic compounds destroying them.

The Plasma-C pilot unit has been successfully deployed at a Scottish Water facility for drinking water treatment. The project is being implemented with the support of a national grant from Innovate UK, aimed at advancing the adoption of innovative technologies in the water sector.

The Plasma-C cold plasma technology is designed for the efficient removal of organic and persistent contaminants, including micropollutants, as well as for reducing microbiological load without the use of chemical reagents.

Scottish Water supplies drinking water to 2.46 million households across Scotland, delivering approximately 1.34 billion liters of drinking water per day, as well as collecting and treating around 847 million liters of wastewater daily.

Cold plasma technology has been successfully demonstrated at a municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill site in Hungary. The pilot trials were conducted under real operational conditions to evaluate the performance of the system in treating complex landfill leachate.

During the testing phase, positive results were achieved in reducing pollutant concentrations and improving the overall environmental safety of the site. The technology demonstrated stable operation and strong adaptability to highly variable wastewater compositions typically found in landfill environments.

These results confirm the strong potential of cold plasma solutions for landfill leachate treatment and environmental impact reduction. The next stage will focus on scaling up pilot trials and further assessing full-scale implementation opportunities.

As part of the demonstration, landfill leachate was treated without any preliminary preparation or pre-treatment, allowing the performance of the technology to be evaluated under “raw” conditions. Despite the absence of pre-filtration, the following results were achieved in reducing Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD):

• Initial solution (TDA source): 2,570 mg/L
• After cold plasma treatment: 140 mg/L
• After subsequent paper filtration: 39 mg/L

The obtained data demonstrate a significant reduction in organic load and confirm the high efficiency of cold plasma technology even without предварительной обработки сточных вод.