Abstract ▼ AI-Helper

Medical facilities and thus their wastes have been increased with higher interests in health by Korean people. The medical wastes need special care in treatment and disposal due to thier hazards and diverse characteristics. So far, the incineration has been recommanded for the merits of volume reduc...

Medical facilities and thus their wastes have been increased with higher interests in health by Korean people. The medical wastes need special care in treatment and disposal due to thier hazards and diverse characteristics. So far, the incineration has been recommanded for the merits of volume reduction and sterilization of infectious viruses and microorganisms. Because medical wastes largely include plastic components such as polyvinylchloride (PVC), however, the emission potential of chlorinated organic compounds such as dioxin/furans is high in fact. Therefore, the study and development of environmentally sound technologies including plasma technology are important. The objective of this study is to investigate the pollutants emission characteristics from medical waste treatment system of electric arc plasma process. The laboratory scale plasma treatment system and simulated medical wastes which is based on the field survey data were utilized. To find out the DRE(destruction and removal efficiency) of pathogens and hazardous chemicals, the bacillius stearothermophilius and the chlorobenzene as surrogates were utilized, and the pollutants of $CO_2,\; CO,\; NO_x,\; SO_2$, and $HCl$ were monitered. $6.4 \times 10^{11}$ spores of bacillius stearothermophilius and 10g of chlorobenzene were spiked into the plasma treatment system. The total destruction efficiency of bacillius stearothermophilius was 99.9998853\%, and that of chlorobenzene in anaerobic and aerobic conditions were 99.59\% and 99.9997\% respectively. The results of the simulated waste treatment experiments show that the secondary combustion chamber, suitable for $NO_x$ removal system and acidic gas treatment system are required in the plasma treatment process for medical wastes. These results are compared with estimation results of CEC 71 program. And the calibration of the program is tried and achieved.