Both a method and apparatus to recover metal in a solid amalgamated form from waste heavy metal electrolye and to reduce the remaining substance to an inert material and distilled water. The hot electrolyte is sprayed through a direct current sparking corona discharge freeing positive and negative ions. Before they reunite they are blown with air and accelerated with polarized force fields at a non-conductive dividing hemisphere with polarity collecting plates on its sides that ions of the correct polarity take to hold to make up molecules. The blown hot ozone vapor laden air is channeled onto a condensing flue, where clean water is removed, and goes on into the next identical cell to repeat this process twice more ending with a scrubber. The electrolyte is cycled through the cells until depleted, when clean water is introduced and filtered. The substance filtered out is inert.

A multi-mass filter for separating particles of a multi-species plasma includes a chamber, which defines an axis. A radial electric field is crossed with a magnetic field (E.times.B) to move the particles of different mass (M.sub.1, M.sub.2 and M.sub.3) on respective trajectories into respective first, second and third regions. Specifically, particles M.sub.1 are confined in the first region, while both particles M.sub.3 and M.sub.2 are ejected from the first region into the second region and only the particles M.sub.3 are ejected from the second region into the third region.

This invention provides methods and apparatus for ionizing all the elements in a complex substance such as radioactive waste and for separation of some of the elements from the other elements. One principal methods utilizes plasma confinement by toroidal magnetic fields as a gate to regulate when and where specific elements are collected. While the plasma is confined, some of the species are removed by repeatedly cycling all of the species between the plasma and the deposition stages lining the walls, whereby some species preferentially accumulate on the deposition stages. The other species are then diverted into an additional containment vessel for collection or additional separations. The apparatus is a large volume plasma processor with multiple containment vessels. The invention provides for the characterization of waste material, and for its separation all within one serf contained vacuum environment. Other applications include remediation of chemical toxic wastes and chemical and germ warfare weapons.

A specimen of molecules containing the desired element is contained in a low-pressure environment and is exposed to a beam of electrons of predetermined energy, causing the electrons to be captured by the molecules. The reaction is chosen so that there is a natural dissociation into an ion containing the desired element. The reaction region is subjected to an electrical field that accelerates the ions and removes them from the reaction region, at which time the ions are exposed to a laser beam of a wavelength sufficient to photodetach a substantial number of electrons from the ions, producing neutral atoms of the desired element. The entire particle stream exiting the interaction region is subjected to a magnetic field that bends the charged ions away from the neutral atoms so that the neutral atoms can then be directed to a test specimen or collection device, as the case may be. The apparatus for carrying out the method includes a pressure vessel for maintaining the environment in which the reactions take place at a pressure in the neighborhood of 10.sup.-4 Torr and, typically, the same magnetic field that is used to separate the ions from the neutral atoms is also used to collimate the electron beam for better localization, to interact with the molecules.

A multi-mass filter for separating particles according to their mass-charge ratio includes a chamber for receiving a multi-species plasma that includes particles therein having different mass-charge ratios (with M.sub.1 <M.sub.2 <M.sub.3). Inside the chamber, which defines an axis, a radial electric field is crossed with a magnetic field (E.ltoreq.B) to move the particles (M.sub.1, M.sub.2 and M.sub.3) on respective trajectories into respective first, second and third regions. For one embodiment, the filter is configured so that a.sub.z.sup.2 B.sub.z is held constant in the expression for cut-off mass, M.sub.cz =ea.sub.z.sup.2 B.sub.z.sup.2 /(8V.sub.ctr). For this embodiment, only the heavier particles M.sub.3 are ejected into the third region (M.sub.3 >M.sub.c3) and only the intermediate particles M.sub.2 are ejected into the second region (M.sub.2 >M.sub.c2). In another embodiment, the radial electrical field is increased outwardly from the axis to a radial distance a.sub.2 (r.sub.2) at a first rate. The electrical field is then increased radially outward between a.sub.2 (r.sub.2) and a radial distance a.sub.3 (r.sub.3) at a lower rate. This electric field configuration defines the first region between the axis and a.sub.2 (r.sub.2), and the second region between a.sub.2 (r.sub.2) and a.sub.3 (r.sub.3). The third region is located radially beyond the second region. Accordingly, with M.sub.c2 =er.sub.2.sup.2 B.sup.2 /(8*(V.sub.ctr- V.sub.2)) and M.sub.c3 =e(r.sub.3.sup.2 -r.sub.2.sup.2)B.sup.2 /(8*V.sub.2), particles M.sub.1 are confined in the first region, while both particles M.sub.3 and M.sub.2 are ejected from the first region into the second region. The particles M.sub.2 are, however, confined in the second region and only the particles M.sub.3 are ejected from the second region into the third region.