In principle, plasma technology process options are the same as those described above for gasification. Because plasma technology is used either for heat and electricity generation as well as for fuels and chemical produc­tion, it is more analogous to the gasification or pyrolysis process than a com­bustion process. The use of a mixed feedstock is very prevalent in plasma technology. A challenging feedstock is automobile rubber tires. They can be pyrolyzed (with or without the use of plasma technology) as is, however, they are often shredded and then converted to useful chemicals by high — temperature pyrolysis. However, just as with switchgrass, the feed prepara­tion for rubber tires can be expensive.

7.4.3 Industrial Processes

There are numerous gasification processes with mixed feedstock currently in operation [1, 6, 114]. We briefly describe three such processes. The descrip­tions of two gasification processes that use an entrained bed gasifier follow the ones outlined in the report by Ratafia-Brown [6].