Energy and environmental assessment of a novel multigeneration plant powered by infectious medical waste

Abstract

This study highlights the energy and environmental impacts of a multigeneration system for infectious medical waste -to-energy (IMWtE). Thermal performance and life cycle assessment (LCA) are investigated via the energy conservation, ReCiPe method, SimaPro database, and situation of environmental issues in Thailand and worldwide. A lifespan of 20y is considered in this study. The energy results show that the multigeneration system can produce a net power of 15.80 kWe from an organic Rankine cycle (ORC), 4.62kW of cooling power from an absorption chiller, and 13.21kW of heating power from a drying room. An overall system efficiency of 13.40% is directly driven from an infectious medical waste (IMW) of 81.98kg/s. According to the LCA results, the construction phase has the highest emissions (81%), followed by the operation phase (6%) and the landfill (1%). The recycling process reduces the environmental impact by 12%. The total lifetime midpoint impact is 3.88E-01 kg emission-eq/kWh. The endpoint includes 4.33E-07 DALY/kWh of human health, 1.50E-06 Species·y/kWh of ecosystem, and 3.81E-03 USD/kWh of resources. The LCA single score is approximately 6.08E+02 Pt/lifespan or 5.63E-04 Pt/kWh.