Medical Waste Treatment Technologies for Energy, Fuels, and Materials Production: A Review

Georgios Giakoumakis, Dorothea Politi and Dimitrios Sidiras
Additional contact information
Georgios Giakoumakis: Laboratory of Simulation of Industrial Processes, Department of Industrial Management and Technology, School of Maritime and Industrial Studies, University of Piraeus, 80 Karaoli & Dimitriou, GR 18534 Piraeus, Greece
Dorothea Politi: Laboratory of Simulation of Industrial Processes, Department of Industrial Management and Technology, School of Maritime and Industrial Studies, University of Piraeus, 80 Karaoli & Dimitriou, GR 18534 Piraeus, Greece
Dimitrios Sidiras: Laboratory of Simulation of Industrial Processes, Department of Industrial Management and Technology, School of Maritime and Industrial Studies, University of Piraeus, 80 Karaoli & Dimitriou, GR 18534 Piraeus, Greece

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 23, 1-30

Abstract: The importance of medical waste management has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic because of the increase in medical waste quantity and the significant dangers of these highly infected wastes for human health and the environment. This innovative review focuses on the possibility of materials, gas/liquid/solid fuels, thermal energy, and electric power production from medical waste fractions. Appropriate and promising treatment/disposal technologies, such as (i) acid hydrolysis, (ii) acid/enzymatic hydrolysis, (iii) anaerobic digestion, (vi) autoclaving, (v) enzymatic oxidation, (vi) hydrothermal carbonization/treatment, (vii) incineration/steam heat recovery system, (viii) pyrolysis/Rankine cycle, (ix) rotary kiln treatment, (x) microwave/steam sterilization, (xi) plasma gasification/melting, (xii) sulfonation, (xiii) batch reactor thermal cracking, and (xiv) torrefaction, were investigated. The medical waste generation data were collected according to numerous researchers from various countries, and divided into gross medical waste and hazardous medical waste. Moreover, the medical wastes were separated into categories and types according to the international literature and the medical waste fractions’ percentages were estimated. The capability of the examined medical waste treatment technologies to produce energy, fuels, and materials, and eliminate the medical waste management problem, was very promising with regard to the near future.

Keywords: medical waste; energy; fuels; chemicals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/23/8065/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/23/8065/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:23:p:8065-:d:693445

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().