It’s 30 by 50 feet. It’s got a $500,000 price tag. It’s bright blue. And it can melt anything.

It’s the plasma furnace in the Metals Development Building.

Retech, a company based in Ukiah, Calif., built the Model 150 Plasma Lab Furnace for the Ames Laboratory. The furnace was tested in California and then disassembled and brought to Ames.

The furnace was installed in September and researchers began using it in mid-November, said Kerry Gibson, media relations coordinator for the Ames Laboratory.

Larry Jones, director of the Materials Preparation Center, said this furnace’s technology has been available for years.

“It’s unique because it doesn’t require melting in a crucible,” Jones said. “We didn’t have this capability before we got this furnace.”

One of the initial tasks for the furnace will be to consolidate material. The consolidation will allow for several metal bars to be melted and formed into one larger piece of metal to reduce the overall surface area where oxidation can occur, Gibson said.

The three full-time staff members have been trained to operate the equipment at the Metals Preparation Center. That training is a matter of understanding the furnace operation, Jones said. Students may be involved in projects but won’t use the equipment.

“The plasma torch has a rate of melting that is just unbelievable,” Jones said.

The plasma torch can reach temperatures of 18,032 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than the sun’s outer layer. The plasma, which is a mixture of helium and argon gases, causes the torch to burn at high temperatures because the gas is electrically charged, Gibson said.

The plasma torch moves back and forth across the ends of the bars as they are pushed into the burning chamber. The back-and-forth movement allows the metal to be melted evenly.

The nozzle of the plasma torch is continually cooled by deionized water during the process. Regular water can’t be used because it would disrupt the electrodes used to fire the torch, Gibson said.

“If it wasn’t cooled, the nozzle of the torch would melt,” he said.

An important feature of the torch is that it automatically shuts off when the torch gets low on water, Gibson said.

Another advantage of this type of furnace is that it eliminates the need for crucible material. A crucible is the container that holds the metal while it is being melted, he said, and if metals react with crucible material when they are being melted, they will be contaminated.

The melting temperature of copper is lower than most other metals, but it conducts heat so well that it is useful for molds, he said.

The plasma furnace hydraulically pushes the bars of metal into the burning chamber.

The plasma furnace has already been used to melt titanium, Gibson said.

“We are looking at melting a rare-earth magnetic material called gadolinium,” he said.

The Materials Preparation Center is internationally known for its ability to produce rare earth metals and alloys, or mixtures of metals, Gibson said.

“The Ames Lab has some researchers looking into what happens at the edges of materials when they go from liquids to solids,” he said.

Gibson said the researchers are also looking at the structure of the materials, how the materials solidify, and strengths and properties of the materials.