Traditional process of carbon black (CB) by furnace method suffers from some shortcomings such as low energy efficiency

amount of CO2 and NOx emissions

and low yield of carbon. The plasma method instead of furnace CB could improve energy efficiency greatly

and eliminate CO2 and NOx emissions produced by combustion

and the ideal conversion rate of carbon could reach 100%. This paper aims at analysis energy efficiency by the plasma method comparing to that by the furnace method for producing CB. The processes of two methods were simulated based on Aspen Plus software. The process exergy rates of furnace CB were calculated for five kinds of CB (N110

N220

N330

N440 and N550) respectively

and two feedstocks of methane and tar were calculated in plasma method. The contrastive analysis of the processes of two methods was made

including the yield of carbon

the exergy rate of input and output materials

the exergy efficiency of product and process. The results indicate that the carbon yield of the furnace method is between 47.6%-66.6%

which is significantly lower than 94% ideal carbon yield of the plasma method. The exergy efficiency of product and process of the plasma CB are higher than that of furnace CB when tar is used as a feedstock. The exergy efficiency of product using tar as a feedstock is higher than that using methane as a feedstock in plasma CB process.