Abstract
Decarburization phenomena have been studied by plasma in stainless steel, plain carbon steel and cast iron. It was also investigated the movement of impurity element P,S in the plasma jet metal pool. The plasma jet was obtained by $Ar\;-\;CO_2$ gas mixture with 5 kVA DC power source. It produced enough temperature to dissociate into activated oxygen atom by reaction of $CO_2{\leftrightarrows}CO+O^+$ and it reacted with ${\underline{C}}$ in metal pool. Decarburization rate was increased about 5 times in comparing with the conventional induction melted metal pool by $CO_2$ gas decarburization. Even under the Ar plasma jet, decarburization was obtained by agitation of metal bath by $Ar^+$ bombardment and dilution phenomena of carbon atom under the very high plasma temperature. But heavy element P and S are not much removed because they are too heavy in mass to be activated by $Ar^+$ion bombardment. Desulphurization was achieved by $Ar\;-\;CO_2$ plasma in plain carbon steel and cast iron by the reaction of $SO_2({\underline{S}}+O^+)$. But dephosphorization could not be obtained by $Ar\;-\;CO_2$ plasma, because gaseous reaction of phosphorous oxide (${\underline{P}}+O^+$) was not existed.