Medical and pharmaceutical waste comes from hospitals, doctors/dentists offices, skilled & unskilled nursing care, group practices, specialized out-patient services and veterinarians. Examples of medical waste are: soiled or blood soaked bandages, culture dishes and other glassware, discarded surgical gloves, and instruments (e.g. scalpels), needles, cultures, stocks, swabs used to inoculate cultures, removed body organs and lancets used to draw blood samples.

For medical waste generators (medium and large hospitals/health clinics or medical waste collectors), the current trend is clearly in the direction of greater efficiency in sorting. The pressure for cost containment has grown in the health care industry and the price for medical waste treatment and disposal has increased. It has been estimated that hospitals and long-term care (LTC) facilities in the US waste generate at least 125 million pounds of pharmaceuticals annually. Our research reflects that medical waste treatment systems are expected to experience high growth due to a growing and aging population, a rising incidence of chronic disease, and new requirements for disposal in community and home settings.

PEAT’s PTDR plasma-arc plasma gasification system in Sacramento, CA is currently permitted for sanitized medical waste treatment, among other waste streams. The PTDR plasma-arc plasma gasification technology has received numerous regulatory approvals throughout the globe, including the California Department of Public Health, which certified the technology as an alternative to incineration for medical waste treatment.

Since October 2011, PEAT has been performing small medical waste treatment campaigns. Most recently in August, PEAT hosted potential clients from Utah to witness a medical waste treatment campaign on waste supplied from the San Jose area.

Dioxins are an issue often cited in the marketing literature of many plasma gasification waste-to-energy technology suppliers as an area where plasma gasification may be superior to other thermal waste processing options. Studies have shown the majority of dioxins are formed within the cooler regions of processes via flyash catalyzed processes, involving chlorine and organic compounds (usually called products of incomplete combustion) in so called de-novo synthesis reactions.

It has been demonstrated (see below table) that the higher temperatures from PEAT’s plasma gasification waste-to-energy process provides for substantial conversion of the organic constituents of the waste and therefore significantly reduces the likelihood of downstream dioxin formation. (There is some credence in the claims that the reducing conditions present inplasma gasification processescould minimize dioxins as the precursor formation reactions usually require excess oxygen).

Dioxins form when all of the following constituents present: carbon, hydrogen, chlorine, and oxygen in appropriate quantities. Once all these elements are present in sufficient quantities, the temperature must also be high enough to promote the formation of such a complex compound, and not so high that the molecules formed become unstable. This temperature zone has been widely estimated to be between 200°C and 450°C. However temperature is not the only mitigating factor as there could be dioxin precursors in the off-sygas/pre-cleaned syngas leaving the plasma gasification reactor thus PEAT’s plasma gasification waste-to-energy systems provide for rapid quenching of the gas (i.e Venturi quench). This is to avoid the de-novo synthesis temperature window.

PEAT recently finalized the installation of a PTDR-100 Refinery Waste Treatment plasma gasification system for a client in China. This plasma-arc, plasma gasification system, is being sought to treat refinery sludge and petrochemical waste.

Here are some pictures of the plasma-arc system:

Plasma-Arc PTDR-100 Plasma Gasification Reactor

Side view of both skids on the PTDR-100 Plasma Gasification System

The refinery waste product contains primarily water, and smaller amounts of non-aqueous liquids and solids, both organic and inorganic, are by-products of the refining and petrochemical industries. For example, a typical industrial waste stream from an oil refinery operation will contain about 80 percent-by-weight water, about 15 percent-by-weight oil, e.g., hydrocarbons and other non-aqueous liquids, and about 5 percent-by-weight solids. Due to environmental regulations, this industrial waste stream poses significant disposal problems for the oil refineries.

The PTDR plasma-arc waste-to-energy system will convert via plasma gasification approximately 50 kilograms/hr (110 lbs) of this refinery waste into syngas estimated to be almost 600,000 BTU/hr (150,000 kCal/hr).

PEAT International designs advanced plasma-arc, plasma gasification systems. PEAT’s industrial waste treatment plants converts refinery waste into energy and other useful end products.