Purnomo Chandra Wahyu, Kurniawan Winarto, Aziz Muhammad
Chemical Engineering Department, Engineering Faculty, Gadjah Mada University, Jl. Grafika no 2, Bulaksumur,Yogyakarta 55281, Indonesia.
Agrotechnology Innovation Center PIAT UGM, Berbah Sleman Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Resour Conserv Recycl. 2021 Apr;167:105429. doi: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105429. Epub 2021 Jan 15.
COVID-19 pandemic has brought tremendous environmental burden due to huge amount of medical wastes (about 54,000 t/d as of November 22, 2020), including face mask, gloves, clothes, goggles, and sanitizer/disinfectant containers. A proper waste management is urgently required to mitigate the spread of the disease, minimize the environmental impacts, and take their potential advantages for further utilization. This work provides a prospective review on the possible thermochemical treatments for those COVID-19 related medical wastes (CMW), as well as their possible conversion to fuels. The characteristics of each waste are initially analyzed and described, especially their potential as energy source. It is clear that most of CMWs are dominated by plastic polymers. Thermochemical processes, including incineration, torrefaction, pyrolysis, and gasification, are reviewed in terms of applicability for CMW. In addition, the mechanical treatment of CMW into sanitized refuse-derived fuel (SRDF) is also discussed as the preliminary stage before thermochemical conversion. In terms of material flexibility, incineration is practically applicable for all types of CMW, although it has the highest potential to emit the largest amount of CO and other harmful gasses. Furthermore, gasification and pyrolysis are considered promising in terms of energy conversion efficiency and environmental impacts. On the other hand, carbonization faces several technical problems following thermal degradation due to insufficient operating temperature.
新冠疫情因大量医疗废物（截至2020年11月22日约为54000吨/天）带来了巨大的环境负担，这些医疗废物包括口罩、手套、衣物、护目镜以及消毒剂/消毒容器。迫切需要进行适当的废物管理，以减缓疾病传播，将环境影响降至最低，并利用其潜在优势进行进一步利用。这项工作对新冠疫情相关医疗废物（CMW）可能的热化学处理方法以及它们转化为燃料的可能性进行了前瞻性综述。首先分析并描述了每种废物的特性，尤其是它们作为能源的潜力。很明显，大多数CMW以塑料聚合物为主。对包括焚烧、烘焙、热解和气化在内的热化学过程在处理CMW方面的适用性进行了综述。此外，还讨论了将CMW机械处理为经过消毒的衍生燃料（SRDF）作为热化学转化前的预处理阶段。就材料适应性而言，焚烧实际上适用于所有类型的CMW，尽管它排放一氧化碳和其他有害气体的可能性最大。此外，就能量转换效率和环境影响而言，气化和热解被认为很有前景。另一方面，由于操作温度不足，碳化在热降解后面临若干技术问题。
