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Abstract
Temperature profiles and cycle times in a large-scale medical waste incinerator installed in a referral hospital were used to assess the performance and functionality of incinerator. The study was conducted using data collected from 8 cycles per days for 67 days. For proper combustion and destruction of toxic components in the primary chamber and destruction of pollutants and toxic components in the flue gas, it is desired to reach the maximum temperature in the chambers faster and maintain this maximum temperature for an extended time interval. The primary and secondary temperatures T1 and T2, respectively, were recorded at an interval of one minute for different cycles. Different amounts of wastes with varying proportions of sharps and other wastes were loaded into the incinerator and temperature profiles recorded. The analysis shows that the incinerator works at primary temperature less than the required recommended by manufacturer while the secondary chamber operates between 600 and above 950℃, although higher temperatures up to 1020℃ were observed. The average load preparation time was observed to be 14.6 minutes, while the chamber preheating time before daily initial loading was 25.45 minutes. Both temperature profiles were observed to have similar shapes for all combustion cycles studied, except when incinerator malfunctioning occurred. The average cycle time was established to be 32.7 minutes and 28.97 minutes based on time to drop to 550℃ after the maximum temperature and loading time intervals, respectively, although longer cycle times were observed. Temperature drop in both combustion chambers as a result of waste charging was observed in the interval of 5 minutes. The chamber heating rate was observed to decrease exponentially with time during both preheating and incineration operation.
Highlights
Incineration is an important technology for the treatment and decontamination of medical waste, involving high-temperature (800 ̊C to 950 ̊C) dry oxidation process that reduces organic and combustible waste to inorganic, incombustible matter with a significant reduction of waste volume and weight
Monitoring of temperature is essential for understanding the performance of double chamber incinerator. This is because, based on temperature profiles, it is possible to establish average cycle time, effect loading on chamber temperatures, functionality of the burners based on actual temperature and heating rate, effectiveness of the chamber preheating, etc
These results generally give picture that, when more pathological waste is loaded into incinerator the temperature is not as high as when more sharp waste was loaded, proper combination of waste types is crucial for attaining higher temperature and faster rise in the incinerator chambers
Summary
Incineration is an important technology for the treatment and decontamination of medical waste, involving high-temperature (800 ̊C to 950 ̊C) dry oxidation process that reduces organic and combustible waste to inorganic, incombustible matter with a significant reduction of waste volume and weight. The study investigated the performance of the large scale medical waste incinerator based on temperature profiles and cycle time [1] [2]. The area of study was MNH which admits 350,000 patients per month and generates and incinerates on average kg of infectious waste daily. Monitoring of temperature is essential for understanding the performance of incinerator in terms of destruction efficiency, emissions control [4] and identification of process malfunctions. This is because, based on temperature profiles, it is possible to establish average cycle time for waste incineration, maximum temperatures reached during each cycle, chamber heating and cooling rate, proportion of sharps waste required to attain highest temperatures, etc
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