The system is designed by the Mechanical Research Institute team to shorten the treatment time of medical waste, without generating dioxins and furans.
In a cooperation with a business unit to repair and maintain the medical waste incineration system, engineer Nguyen Van Binh (Mechanical Research Institute) was shared by the business owner who wanted to have a new treatment technology line, limiting toxic in the environment, but because of the high cost of imported equipment systems, he was hesitant.
As a mechanical engineer but interested in the environment, Mr. Binh learns more about new technologies in the world. Realizing that autoclaving technology is developed in many countries such as the US, Iceland, Germany, while most of Vietnam still uses conventional incineration methods for medical waste. “If successful, this technology could be an improvement in the problem of medical waste disposal in the country,” he said.
Spending 2 years researching and researching, by 2019, engineer Binh and his colleagues have decoded the technology and successfully manufactured a medical waste steaming system that does not create secondary waste including dioxin and furan.
The system ran a test at a medical waste treatment company, with garbage components belonging to the pathogen infection group (materials permeable to blood, fluids, excretions of patients such as gloves, cotton swabs, blood transfusion lines…) reached a capacity of 4 tons / day. Microbiological tests of medical waste after treatment meet the results required by the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.
Talking about the treatment process, the authors said that the system is built with an autoclave with a capacity of 9,000 liters, a 480-liter boiler and a system control cabinet. Medical garbage is transferred to the autoclave with three stages (vacuum, steam loading and high temperature pressure, sterilization from 135 degrees Celsius and above. Time 40 minutes for 700 kg of garbage.
In particular, saturated steam at high temperatures helps to eliminate all germs, bacteria, pathogens in garbage. This process does not cause odor, does not produce dioxins and furans like conventional combustion.
The whole processing process is operated automatically, when the sterilization time expires, the garbage is cooled and crushed to a size of about 2-3 cm, pressed into cakes, and then carried out to landfill. The finished product after treatment is sterile waste, not capable of infecting the environment. “Even when landfilled, the product does not take up much space and especially does not affect the soil and water environment,” Binh said.
The system has similar features and capacity, if imported, it costs about 10 billion VND. However, the domestically manufactured system gives short processing time, productivity increases by about 15-20% compared to the technology of the world’s leading company, while the price is only 1/3 of the imported price.
Initially mastering the technology, Mr. Binh said, the group continues to improve to reduce costs and introduce products to other waste treatment companies in the country.
