Co-Combustion Investigation of Wood Pellets Blended with FFP2 Masks: Analysis of the Ash Melting Temperature

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a period of high consumption of protective masks and an increase in their waste. Therefore, it was necessary to look at possibilities for their disposal. This article is focused on the disposal of FFP2 masks in the form of pellets blended with sawdust. Further, their ash melting behavior was observed. The method of ash preparation can impact the resulting values of melting temperatures. Therefore, this article investigates the resulting values of ash melting temperatures determined during different ash preparations, such as temperatures (550 °C and 815 °C) and ash size (non-sifted, smaller than 50 µm and 100 µm). All measured deformation temperatures were higher than 1100 °C and even higher than 1200 °C for some samples. Moreover, the presence of FFP2 masks in pellets only insignificantly affected the values of melting temperatures compared to pure wood pellets. The measured values also showed that increasing the temperature of ash preparation from 550 to 815 °C can increase the resulting values of melting temperature. The most significant proportion of the fraction size on the resulting melting temperatures was observed for beech with 5% and 10% of masks at an ash temperature of 550 °C and for spruce with 10% of masks at an ash temperature of 815 °C. © 2023 by the authors.

The energy assessment of COVID-19 medical waste as a potential fuel

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused huge health and economic damages. Various protective face masks, such as single-use, cotton, and the most widespread FFP2 or KN95 masks, are used to prevent the spread of this virus. However, these face masks are usually packaged in plastic packaging, which increases the amount of plastic waste. Plastic gloves are also often used in the connection of the pandemic. All this leads to a large production of protective equipment, but their use contributes to the increase of this type of waste, which presents a new challenge in waste management. This article investigates a complete element analysis of these mentioned materials and observes potential harmful substances. Further, pellets, as a potential fuel for combustion or pyrolysis purposes, were produced with the content of 5% and 10% of face masks. FFP2 were firstly separated from ear straps and wires, then disintegrated, added to spruce sawdust, and compressed into pellets. A series of experiments were realized and aimed at elemental, thermogravimetric, and calorific value analyses of produced pellets. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the presence of face masks FFP2 in pellets increases the content of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, volatile matter, and calorific values, but decreases the content of fixed carbon. According to elemental analysis of produced pellets, no significant amounts of harmful elements were found. © 2023 The Author(s)

A review of plastic pollution and their treatment technology: A circular economy platform by thermochemical pathway

The rapid expansion of plastic manufacturing industries in last several decades has brought serious concerns over the environmental impacts of plastic wastes. Recent outbreak of Covid-19 drastically increased production, use, and disposal of plastic products. Current management strategies for wasted plastics still rely on landfill and incineration that continue to exacerbate plastic pollution and carbon emissions. Many countries have put forward multifaceted administrative efforts to reduce plastic wastes, but the annual global generation of plastic wastes is still increasing. In techno-society, researchers have been exploring more effective plastic wastes treatment technologies to alleviate environmental impacts of plastic wastes. Such efforts entailed several technical options that can potentially contribute to establishing a circular economy for plastics. Thermochemical process is a prominent example of such techniques. This review presents an overview of the issue of plastic pollution, covering topics including global plastic production, environmental impacts, and toxicity. In addition, the global administrative efforts aimed at reducing plastic pollution are discussed, as well as detection and treatment strategies to establish a circular economy in plastic management. © 2023 Elsevier B.V.

Environmental pollution from COVID-19 generated wastes result in widespread recycling of SARS-CoV-2 infection

Wastes generated in the face of COVID-19 pose enormous risks to the environment and heath. Environmental pollution from deficiencies in disposal patterns of hospital wastes may result in widespread recycling of SARS-CoV-2 infection. This paper aimed at creating awareness of the impact of inaptly disposed medical wastes on the environment;produced from managing COVID-19 leading to SARS-CoV-2 widespread recycling. Assemblage of recent and suitable literatures relating to keywords like waste disposal, medical wastes, coronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 and environmental pollution were revised/reviewed. Data suggest that factors like reduced awareness, negligence, ignorance, lack of polices among others are the chief influences contributing to improper medical wastes collection, disposal and management leading to environmental hazards. Therefore, improper disposal of medical wastes can lead to toxic environmental pollution thereby recycling SARS-CoV-2 in the face of COVID-19 management. Hence, incineration after prior disinfection remains the best management option in the prevailing coronavirus era. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Current State, Development and Future Directions of Medical Waste Valorization

Elevated medical waste has urged the improvement of sustainable medical waste treatments. A bibliometric analysis is initially conducted to investigate scientific development of medical waste management to pinpoint the publication trends, influential articles, journals and countries and study hotspots. Publications on medical waste and its management sharply increased since 2020. The most influential article was written by Klemeš et al., and "Waste Management and Research” is the most productive journal. India, China, the United Kingdom, Iran and Italy have published the most works. The research spotlights have switched from "human” and "sustainable development” in 2019 to "COVID-19” and "circular economy” in 2021. Since government acts essentially in handling medical waste and controlling disease transmission, rule implementations among the abovementioned countries are summarized to seek gaps between scientific advancement and regulatory frameworks. For accomplishing a circular economy, waste-to-energy technologies (incineration, gasification, pyrolysis, plasma-based treatments, carbonization, hydrogenation, liquefaction, biomethanation, fermentation and esterification) are comprehensively reviewed. Incineration, gasification, pyrolysis and carbonization are relatively feasible methods, their characteristics and limitations are further compared. By holistically reviewing current status of medical waste research, the focal points involved in management at the policy and technical level have been highlighted to find proper routes for medical waste valorization. © 2023 by the authors.

Effective multipurpose sewage sludge and food waste reduction strategies: A focus on recent advances and future perspectives

Energy crisis and increasing rigorous management standards pose significant challenges for solid waste management worldwide. Several emerging diseases such as COVID-19 aggravated the already complex solid waste management crisis, especially sewage sludge and food waste streams, because of the increasingly large production year by year. As mature waste disposal technologies, landfills, incineration, composting, and some other methods are widespread for solid wastes management. This paper reviews recent advances in key sewage sludge disposal technologies. These include incineration, anaerobic digestion, and valuable products oriented-conversion. Food waste disposal technologies comprised of thermal treatment, fermentation, value-added product conversion, and composting have also been described. The hot topic and dominant research foci of each area are summarized, simultaneously compared with conventional technologies in terms of organic matter degradation or conversion performance, energy generation, and renewable resources production. Future perspectives of each technology that include issues not well understood and predicted challenges are discussed with a positive effect on the full-scale implementation of the discussed disposal methods. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

DESIGN OF A MOBILE INCINERATOR TO ELIMINATE THE COVID-19 MEDICAL WASTE

One of the most important events in recent years is the Covid-19 epidemic, which began in 2019 and continues to this day. The virus is transmitted in several ways, including medical waste (face masks, hand gloves, gowns, covers, etc.) Medical waste has increased, and the only successful way of treatment is incineration. The paper presents a design model of a mobile medical incinerator for Health Care Centres of Covid-19 in Baghdad. The clinical capacity of one centre is 50 beds and the amount of waste produced is 100 kg per day. The mobile incinerator presented has a capacity of 25 kg/h, has high efficiency, and eliminates the transmission of the virus from one area to another, by waste. The incineration process leads to the reduction of waste weight by 75% and waste volume by 95%. The paper presents a model to calculate the volume of the primary and secondary combustion chambers. The mass of gas fuel added to the burners, the volume of flue gases resulted from the medical waste combustion and the residence time of the resulting gases in the secondary combustion chamber are determined. © 2022, Politechnica University of Bucharest. All rights reserved.

Experimental Investigation and neural network modelling of diesel engine using hexanol blended ternary waste cooking oil biodiesel with moderate preheating

The depleting fossil fuel reserves, rising air pollution, technology transformation threat, and most recently, global economic slowdown by the COVID-19 pandemic, led the internal combustion engine-based automotive industries in a critical condition. The development of improved biofuels to meet stringent emission norms is a promising solution. Higher alcohols possess the fuel properties better than lower alcohols to blend with diesel and biodiesel. The miscibility and higher viscosity is the issue. Preheating can help the vaporization and atomization of fuel. The present study investigates the engine characteristics of moderately preheated ternary fuel using 20 to 40% blends of 1-hexanol, waste cooking oil biodiesel, and diesel. The study found that moderately preheated ternary fuel blends showed a drop in brake-specific fuel consumption, HC, CO, and smoke emissions with improvement in peak cylinder pressure, heat release rate, and brake thermal efficiency. A multi-layer neural network model is developed to prognosticate the engine characteristics. Backpropagation algorithm-based neural network with single hidden layers using Levenberg–Marquardt training function gave the best results. The mean square error of the network was 0.00028517 and the correlation coefficient was 0.99944, 0.99945, and 0.99923 for training, validation, and testing respectively. The mean absolute percentage error was found below 4%. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Tracking of Health Care Waste using Global Positioning System during COVID'19

Handling Medical waste during this pandemic is the most challenging job of the sanitary workers involved in collecting, segregation, and disposal. If not appropriately segregated and disposed of, the collected waste leads to many health issues for the people residing in the nearby region. It also contaminates underground water, land and causes harmful effects on the environment. The Municipality workers find it difficult in tracking the waste from collection to dump yard until it is adequately incinerated. This paper focuses on tracking the bin from the collection centre to the dump yard by using GPS (Global Positioning System). The officials can also trace the route by integrating the proposed system with Google Maps to check whether the collected waste has been transported adequately to the incineration centres. © 2022 IEEE.

Potential Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Plastic Medical Waste Management in South Africa: A Narrative Review

The global increase in plastic consumption has intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic. This review aims to highlight the potential impact of inadequate capacity for medical waste management during the pandemic phase, assess existing capacity in South Africa, and discuss the way forward. Key findings are;mismanaged medical waste can result in the secondary transmission of diseases and medical waste capacity can undoubtedly be compromised by outbreaks of diseases. South Africa is at a vantage point where it can learn from other countries such as China whose pre-Covid-19 capacities were overwhelmed by the surge in medical waste. With around 34.1% of households lacking waste collection services, the current medical waste management systems may not be fully adequate to handle the expected increase in waste as Covid-19 infections rise. To prevent challenges associated with poor waste management practices;as resources are channeled towards containing the Covid-19 pandemic, equal effort should also be directed towards increasing the country's medical waste management capacity including transportation services and labour. A full audit of the systems across the country is required. Existing infrastructure that can be utilized, including cement kilns and furnaces, should be identified, while mobile incinerators will also be advantageous. © 2021 IEEE.

A Study on the Environmental Impact During Distribution and Disposal Stages for the 3-Ply Face Masks by Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

The demand of face masks had increased tremendously due to pandemic outbreak of COVID-19, leading to the increment production rate of face masks in Malaysia. Waste is also produced at the same time, resulting impacts towards the environment. Due to the land scarcity issue in Malaysia, the end of life treatment for the waste is taken into consideration. The study tools used in this study is life cycle assessment (LCA) to identify the significant potential environmental impact produced during the life cycle stages for distribution and disposal through GaBi Education Software. The disposal stage between landfill and incineration of the 3-Ply face masks is studied to determine the end of life treatment for it. The impact assessment method selected in this study is CML 2001-Jan 2016 with the environmental indicator of Global Warming Potential (GWP), Acidification Potential (AP), Eutrophication Potential (EP) and Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP). GWP results in producing highest impact to the environment during both distribution and disposal stages. The impact of GWP also relates to the climate change. Modern incineration is recommended to overcome the issue of land scarcity in Malaysia as the amount of waste by 3-Ply face masks are increasing due to the pandemic COVID-19, reducing the impacts towards the environment. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

A review on emergency disposal and management of medical waste during the COVID-19 pandemic in China.

The surge of medical waste (MW) generated during the COVID-19 pandemic has exceeded the disposal capacity of existing facilities. The timely, safe, and efficient emergency disposal of MW is critical to prevent the epidemic spread. Therefore, this review presents the current status of MW generation and disposal in China and analyzes the characteristics and applicability of emergency disposal technologies. The results show that movable disposal facilities can dispose of infectious MW on site, even though most of their disposal capacity is at a low level (<5 t/day). Co-disposal facilities need to be reformed completely for emergency MW disposal, in which separate feeding systems should be taken seriously. Specifically, municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration facilities have great potential to improve emergency MW disposal capacities. For hazardous waste incineration facilities, compatibility of the wastes must be matched to the composition and calorific value of the waste. As for cement kiln, MW can only be used as an alternative fuel instead of a raw material for cement. Based on the environmental risk and technical adaptability, the six emergency MW disposal technologies are recommended to be prioritized as follows: movable microwave sterilization, movable steam sterilization, movable incineration, co-incineration with hazardous waste, co-incineration with MSW and co-disposal in cement kilns. Infectious MW, especially COVID-19 MW, should be prioritized for disposal by centralized and movable disposal facilities, while non-infectious MW can be disposed of using co-disposal facilities. All stakeholders should strengthen the delicacy management of the end-of-life stage of MW, including collection, classification, packaging identification, transportation, and disposal. Currently, it is necessary for centralized disposal enterprises to follow the emergency disposal operation flowchart. From a long-term strategic perspective, making full use of regional movable and co-disposal facilities in the megacities can effectively enhance the emergency MW disposal capacity.

Biomedical waste generation and management during COVID-19 pandemic in India: challenges and possible management strategies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the massive generation of biomedical waste (BMW) and plastic waste (PW). This sudden spike in BMW and PW has created challenges to the existing waste management infrastructure, especially in developing countries. Safe disposal of PW and BMW is essential; otherwise, this virus will lead to a waste pandemic. This paper reviews the generation of BMW and PW before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the regulatory framework for BMW management, policy interventions for COVID-19-based BMW (C-BMW), the capacity of BMW treatment and disposal facilities to cope with the challenges, possible management strategies, and perspectives in the Indian context. This study indicated that policy intervention helped minimize the general waste treated as C-BMW, especially during the second pandemic. Inadequacy of common BMW treatment facilities' (CBMWTFs) capacity to cope with the BMW daily generation was observed in some states resulting in compromised treatment conditions. Suggestions for better management of BMW and PW include decontamination of used personal protective equipment (PPEs) and recycling, alternate materials for PPEs, segregation strategies, and use of BMW for co-processing in cement kilns. All upcoming CBMWTFs should be equipped with higher capacity and efficient incinerators for the sound management of BMW. Post-pandemic monitoring of environmental compartments is imperative to assess the possible impacts of pandemic waste.