Plasma deep drilling technology

In the recent past, there were several attempts to develop new drilling technology which would be able to substitute conventional contact-based rotary systems. These concepts were based on different principles such as water jet, hydrothermal spallation or laser. Worldwide there are several research teams which work continually on research and development of new deep drilling technology. Until now, no one from these attempts has been proved to be effective in extreme deep drilling conditions. One of them was also technology of plasma in several different variants.

High-energetic electrical plasma

High-energetic electrical plasma is one of the most promising technologies which are currently being developed in deep drilling applications. It has lower energy efficiency than some of the other technologies, but has several other advantages. The most important are utilization in water environment or producing boreholes with wide range of diameters. The research team from Slovakia is developing drilling concept based on electrical plasma principle suitable for several drilling applications. The core of the research is held in Research Centre for Deep Drilling established in the premises of Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava.