RU2779544C1 - Method for disposing of health care waste - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: processing of waste.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to the field of environmental protection, namely, to a method for disposing of health care waste, including separate collection of waste by hazard classes. Method for disposing of health care waste, including the separate collection at the waste accumulation sites in coloured polymer bags, followed by packing the bags in sealed cardboard storage boxes for storing waste of hazard classes A, B, C in a locked room separately in carts. The necks of the boxes are folded along the riffles so as to connect the adjoining end by fusing with an electric tool. Boxes of waste loaded onto carts are moved to a locker in the local yard storage area, wherefrom the boxes are reloaded into an insulated body of a waste transporting vehicle, provided with a refrigerator and an ultraviolet recycling unit, wherein the vehicle is equipped with an electronic unit for satellite navigation and communication with the centre for the control and tracking of the waste transportation route to the dislocation site wherein the waste undergoes thermal decontamination by autothermal incineration. The waste is incinerated in a vertical dual-chamber furnace, providing a volumetric autothermal combustion mode therein in a positive oxygen balance environment as a result of forced injection of air preheated in a pass-through heat exchanger by the energy of the furnace gases discharged from the afterburning chamber, said air being distributed in doses into a tubular perforated grate, into the central nozzle between the furnace chambers and along the perimeter of the reducer thereof in the afterburning chamber, the exhaust gas branch pipe whereof is communicated via an exhaust fan into a pipe extending to a height with a main, through the consecutively mounted and interconnected pass-through vertical columns for the purification by reaction interaction of the exhaust gases with the process fluid, in particular, by means of consecutive counter-spraying, bubbling, condensation on an extended surface, primarily of Raschig rings, and agglomeration of suspended solid particles in a water fog layer.

EFFECT: optimised and simplified process of separate collection of health care waste, finer purification of exhaust gases after incineration of waste, simplified automatic production process of gas purification.

3 cl, 6 dwg

Description

The invention relates to the field of environmental protection, namely, to a method for the disposal of healthcare waste, including the separate collection of waste according to hazard classes at the places of their formation in hermetically packed storage boxes and their subsequent localized disposal in vehicles for transporting waste to the place of disposal, where they are thermally neutralized by burning in a vertical two-chamber furnace connected to the line of sequential operations for neutralizing exhaust gases.

The level of this field of technology characterizes a method for the separate collection, storage and disposal of waste from medical and preventive organizations (HPO), which are necessarily subjected to reaction neutralization prescribed by the SanPiN 2.1.7.728-99 protocol "Sanitary rules and norms", including the following sequential actions and operations :

- separate collection of waste within the medical unit in the places of their primary formation, in accordance with their morphology and hazard class;

- transportation in standardized trolleys and local reloading of waste into (inter-) hull racks;

- temporary storage of waste on the territory of the LPO;

- transportation of waste to the place of their thermal neutralization.

Hazard class A waste is collected in returnable containers using disposable plastic bags of the corresponding white color.

Hazard class A health care waste is collected in reusable tanks, which are washed with a disinfectant solution daily.

Class B and C wastes are preliminarily immersed in a disinfectant solution of a given concentration for the exposure time determined by the relevant recommendations.

объема выдавливают воздух и формируют горловину сборкой материала в жгут, который затягивают механической стяжкой.From the bags after filling with waste on

volume, air is squeezed out and a neck is formed by assembling the material into a bundle, which is tightened with a mechanical coupler.

Waste intended for collection in bags according to class B: needles, metal tools (stabbing, cutting) and class C: organic and chemical waste are collected in disposable solid packages, hermetically sealed with a lid.

Open tools (needles, feathers) that have been disinfected are collected in solid packaging.

After filling and sealing disposable bags, they are inscribed with the code of the health care facility unit, the name of the institution, the date and surname of the person responsible for collecting the waste.

Sealed waste in bags and disposable solid packages in trolleys, separately according to hazard classes, are transported to a place of temporary storage in inter-vessel containers with a capacity of 120 liters, and waste of classes A and B - in open areas, and class C - only in an isolated room of the unit.

Interhull containers are labeled and equipped with a moisture-proof lid and wheels for easy transfer to the closed body of a waste transport vehicle.

Transportation of containers with healthcare waste to the facility (to the place of their storage and thermal neutralization) is carried out in closed car bodies, which ensure the safety of the cargo and the safety of transportation.

When loading inter-vessel containers into a closed vehicle body, an empty inter-vessel container is installed at the designated place on the storage site, the disinfection of which is carried out at the facility for thermal waste disposal by the exporting organization.

The described method is characterized by the following disadvantages.

The mechanical tightening of the neck of the polymer bags does not ensure the tightness of the capping of hazardous waste, which leads to pollution of the environment around the site of intra-yard centralized storage of healthcare waste on the territory of the health care facility and in the back of the vehicle, therefore, along the entire path of movement from the place of waste generation to the place of their thermal neutralization at the accommodation facility, which is unacceptable.

In this case, the infected air from the bag during the capping operation to form the neck tourniquet is forced out of the solid packages, which requires additional equipment of the car body with means and various fastening devices that increase the cost of work.

In operating furnaces for incineration of healthcare waste, fuel (gas, oil fuel) is additionally consumed, which increases the cost of the process, aggravating energy losses by taking heat in the furnace to heat oxidizing air, and incomplete final combustion of combustion products.

The absence of a system for effective purification and neutralization of exhaust gases, by definition, causes an increased content of harmful and toxic emissions into the atmosphere.

The noted shortcomings are eliminated in the method for the disposal of healthcare waste according to patent RU 2392541 C1, F42G 5/00, 2010, which, by the number of matching features and technical essence, is selected as the closest analogue to the proposed method.

The known method includes separate collection at the places of waste generation of classes A, B, C in danger into a hermetically sealed storage container of different color in a hermetically sealed storage container in a separate lockable room.

Hermetically sealed containers with various wastes are placed separately in trolleys for centralized intra-yard storage in a closed common box, from which the boxes are then transferred to a car body equipped with ventilation and ultraviolet irradiation, transporting waste to the facility, where they are thermally neutralized by burning in a vertical furnace equipped with means of neutralization and purification of exhaust gases according to the "wet" technology of reaction interaction with process fluids.

Collection, storage and transportation of waste is carried out in disposable solid packages in the form of a box, which is made of laminated cardboard with a thermoplastic polymer coating and is provided with an identification bar code.

The open end of the box after being filled with waste is folded along the corrugations of the neck, forming a positive locking lid by fusing the joints of the lid formed in this case.

The end joint of the lid is hermetically welded by means of an electrically heated clamping tool.

The closed body of the vehicle (car) is equipped with an electronic communication unit with a satellite navigation, monitoring and control system, equipped with a refrigerator and an ultraviolet recirculator.

Thermal disposal of waste is carried out by autothermal combustion in a vertical two-chamber furnace for layer-by-layer oxidative pyrolysis with air blowing into the nozzle of the separation dome.

The furnace has an automatic loading of sealed packages, an ash removal mechanism and an exhaust gas purification facility, which in combination ensures the sealing of healthcare waste from the external environment during storage, transportation and incineration, reducing the harmful burden on the environment during disposal, optimizing the technical process of organized collection and disposal of sealed healthcare waste.

The continuation of the noted advantages of the known method of disposal of healthcare waste are inherent disadvantages:

- unsatisfactory logistics of organizing and managing a unified process for the separate collection of health care waste of various hazard classes with labor-intensive manual reloading of sealed boxes with waste from a locked intra-yard box of centralized storage into the car body, as well as from the latter - into boxes for separate temporary storage of sealed waste at the accommodation facility;

- layer-by-layer combustion of waste on grates in the pyrolysis mode is characterized by relatively low productivity and incomplete oxidation of combustion products containing active radicals and soot residues, which must be neutralized and neutralized inside the installation with additional means and reagents;

- in a vertical waste incineration furnace, the volumetric distribution of oxidizing air over its structural elements, in particular, in the central nozzle between the combustion chambers and the upper afterburner chamber, is not optimized, which occurs due to an excess of two-stage annular air supply inside the nozzle, resulting in the formation of an aerodynamic shutter , which prevents the free passage of gaseous combustion products, which are locked in the combustion chamber, destabilizing and slowing down the gas dynamics of the combustion process, and gaseous combustion products through the nozzle break through the afterburning chamber with acceleration, where the oxidation of combustion products is not completed, which ultimately increases harmful emissions in the exhaust gases ;

- incomplete oxidation of gaseous combustion products in a vertical furnace and unsatisfactory purification of exhaust gases from solid impurities in the scrubber and on mechanical filters of replaceable cassettes determines the non-environmental nature of the known method and complicates technological maintenance, with an increase in capital costs of production;

- household healthcare waste generated by vital activity in the wards of patients of health care facilities is collected and disposed of autonomously from the main healthcare waste in a separate technological chain, which is laborious and not rational.

In addition, manual transfer of waste boxes from the yard box to the back of a waste transport vehicle and the subsequent unloading of waste boxes placed in temporary storage boxes at the site is time-consuming and laborious.

The technical problem to be solved by the present invention is the optimization of the process of separate collection of healthcare waste, with the productive loading and unloading of a vehicle for transporting waste, as well as the mechanization of the supply of boxed healthcare waste to a two-chamber vertical furnace for combustion, which is intensified due to efficient distribution of the oxidizing air supply along the height of the furnace, to increase the purity of the exhaust gases, including their additional purification by means of a multi-stage "wet" technology, to the degree of environmental safety.

The required technical result is achieved by the fact that in the known method for the disposal of healthcare waste, containing separate collection at the places of formation in colored polymer bags, followed by their placement in sealed cardboard storage boxes that have thermoplastic lamination of white, yellow and red color, respectively, for storing class A waste , B, In danger in a locked room separately in trolleys, while the necks of the boxes are folded along the corrugations to connect the abutting end by melting with a power tool, then the boxes with waste loaded into the trolleys are moved to a lockable box on the site of intra-yard local storage, from where the boxes are reloaded into equipped with a refrigerator and an ultraviolet recirculator, an insulated body of a waste transport vehicle equipped with an electronic unit for satellite navigation and communication with a control center and control of the waste transportation route to the accommodation facility , where thermal neutralization is carried out by autothermal combustion in a vertical two-chamber furnace with distributed air blast, having a central nozzle between the chambers and means for cleaning exhaust gases, and the vehicle at the accommodation facility is unloaded into boxes for separate storage of waste according to hazard classes, while co-incineration of waste classes is allowed B and C, according to the invention, packed boxes with waste by color are placed separately in rack carts installed in the courtyard box, which are rotated to be replaced by conformal carts from the vehicle body when it is loaded with packaged waste, rack carts loaded with one-color boxes are moved at the placement facility into independent boxes of separate storage, filling the body of the vehicle with empty replaceable rack trolleys from their free stock; for loading boxes into a vertical furnace, where the mode of volumetric autothermal combustion is provided in a positive oxygen balance environment as a result of the forced supply of air preheated in the through-flow heat exchanger by the energy of the exhaust gases from the afterburning chamber of the furnace, which is dosed distributed into a tubular perforated grate, inside the central nozzle between chambers of the furnace and along the perimeter of its confuser in the afterburning chamber, the exhaust gas pipe of which is connected, through the exhaust fan, leading the pipe to a height, with the line, through sequentially mounted in interconnection through vertical columns of purification by the reaction interaction of the exhaust gases with the process liquid, in particular, by means of successive counter showering, bubbling, condensation on a developed surface, mainly Raschig rings, and agglomeration of suspended solids in a water mist layer.

A feature of the proposed method is that healthcare waste, which is the household waste of patients in the wards of their detention in health care facilities, is collected in black plastic bags, which are sealed in black laminated boxes and stored in a separate room of health care facilities, together with waste classes A, B , C, and for storage in the box of the courtyard area, black sealed boxes are placed in a separate rotating rack trolley, and at the accommodation facility they are placed in a separate storage box, burning both independently and together with waste of any classes A, B, H hazard.

Another feature of the proposed method is that the sealed boxes are loaded onto the grate of the combustion chamber along the gravity tray through the slide gate, synchronized with the unloading of the boxes from the container on the lift.

Distinctive features of the proposed technical solution organizationally improved the separate collection of healthcare waste in health care facilities, carrying out loading and unloading operations using replaceable rotating rack trolleys, with centralized control of the given logistics of the vehicle for transporting waste to the accommodation facility, where they are effectively incinerated packed in boxes, and fine purification of gases from the furnace using a multi-pass "wet" technology, which achieves high-performance environmentally friendly disposal of healthcare waste.

At the same time, the transportation of exhaust gases along the reduced pressure line is combined with heat exchange and sequential interaction with an alkaline process liquid by means of counter showering, bubbling, condensation on a developed surface and agglomeration in a water mist layer.

The collection of waste of different hazard classes in labeled disposable bags of established colors streamlines the collection of the same type of healthcare waste in a box container of isolated storage and transportation for disposal by incineration without sorting, which is facilitated by the visualization of packages of different colors in accordance with the hazard class of the packaged healthcare waste optimally distributed over the height of the furnace.

Additional isolation of waste in bags virtually eliminates the associated evaporation and gassing during collection and storage, minimizing the contact of medical workers with waste.

Automatic selection of part of the energy of the exhaust gases in the heat exchanger, where the oncoming air blast is heated to a temperature of 220-250 ° C, accordingly increases the process temperature in both chambers of the vertical furnace for more efficient waste combustion, minimizing the content of harmful and toxic components in the exhaust gases, thereby reducing load on subsequent operations of liquid neutralization of gaseous emissions into the atmosphere.

Modernization of the process of volumetric waste incineration in an environment of excess oxygen, optimally distributed by air blast along the height of the furnace, ensures the oxidation of the resulting gases to the final products of chemical reactions, and also includes the neutralization of exhaust gases according to the "wet" technology using various operations of reaction interaction with an alkaline process liquid: counter showering, bubbling, condensation on a developed surface and agglomeration of solid particles in a water mist environment.

Combination of a through pipeline connecting the afterburning chamber of a vertical furnace with a vertical outlet pipe, where a reduced pressure is created by means of an exhaust fan for forced main movement of exhaust gases through the liquid treatment positions and to the atmosphere.

The multi-stage volumetric interaction of the gases leaving the furnace with the reaction process liquid, which is carried out in devices of different physical action, mounted in series in a through pipeline, provides chemical and physical purification of the gas flow during its movement, which, together with the partial removal of thermal energy from the hot gases leaving the furnace in a counterflow heat exchanger, heating the process air for distributed blast along the height of the furnace, forms a single process flow, compact and efficient.

At the same time, the technological reaction solution is used in a closed cycle, separating the solid phase of the exhaust gas aerosol by filtration and separation, and preheating in the oxidizing air flow heat exchanger proportionally increases the temperature in the furnace, intensifying the process of waste incineration, with the concomitant production of final oxidation products, thereby reducing the content of harmful substances that are further neutralized by automatic treatment with the reaction liquid.

With co-incineration in a common vertical furnace of waste of classes B and C (it is possible to add household waste), the productivity of work is increased, production is simplified and the capital costs of the process are reduced.

The height-optimized supply of heated oxidizing air makes it possible to utilize part of the thermal energy of the flue gases and ensures a rise in temperature inside the furnace.

The distribution of oxidizing air along the height of the furnace (under the grate, into the nozzle between the chambers and into the diffuser of the upper afterburner chamber) is aimed at more efficient complete combustion of waste to the final oxidation products.

The combination of transportation of gases from the furnace with the technological processes of their neutralization and purification minimizes the occupied production area and localizes the facility as a whole.

Therefore, each essential feature is necessary, and their combination is sufficient to achieve a novelty of quality that is not inherent in features in disunity, that is, the technical problem posed in the invention is solved not by the sum of effects, but by a new super-effect of the sum of features (synergistic effect).

The essence of the proposed invention is illustrated by drawings, which do not limit the scope of the claims of the totality of the features of the formula, but serve only to illustrate the method.

The drawings show:

in fig. 1 - unified rack trolley;

in fig. 2 - hinged shelf for installation in a rack trolley;

in fig. 3 - intra-yard area of LPO with a lockable box;

in fig. 4 - a vehicle for transporting healthcare waste;

in fig. 5 is a diagram of the accommodation facility, where the dash-dotted lines show the distribution route of the colored boxes with sealed waste unloaded from the body of the vehicle in different boxes for their separate storage by accessory, solid arrow lines show the functional relationships of the boxes for separate storage of waste packed in boxes that stacked in rack carts, with a position for mechanized loading of sealed boxes into the furnace for their combustion, and dotted arrow lines - the path of movement of empty rack carts from the furnace to the shed to accumulate their stock and then to the installation of rack carts in the vehicle body after its unloading;

in fig. 6 - waste incineration plant.

According to the proposed method, healthcare waste in health care units is separately collected in colored plastic bags (class A in white, class B in yellow, class C in red, household waste from patients in the detention wards - in black) and then placed in laminated boxes of the appropriate color , which are hermetically welded along the junction of the ends (oriented along the corrugations of the neck folded into the junction of the ends), forming a cover welded along the adjacent ends with an electrically heated tool.

Packed waste in hermetically sealed colored boxes is stored in a separate lockable room of the LPO, which is placed inside rack trolleys (Fig. 1), oriented on its hinged shelves (Fig. 2).

Periodically, shelving carts filled with sealed waste boxes are moved to the courtyard area (Figure 3), where the carts are placed in a box, which is then locked for isolated centralized storage of boxes, grouped by color.

When loading the vehicle body for waste transportation (Fig. 4), its body is freed from empty replaceable (rotated) rack trolleys, which, after the waste loading operation, are moved inside the LPO, distributing into compartments. The vehicle all the way from the LPO to the waste disposal facility is controlled by the control and registration point (conditionally not shown), along the established route, tracked by means of geolocation.

The accommodation facility (Fig. 5) is equipped with boxes 1, 2, 3 for separate storage of single-color boxes with waste placed in rack carts, respectively, of hazard classes A, B, C and box 4 for storing household waste, which are in rack carts from the body of the vehicle 6 unloaded and autonomously installed in the respective boxes 1-4 temporary storage.

After unloading, the body of the vehicle 6 is completed with pre-cleaned (conditionally not shown), empty rack carts from the stock under the stationary canopy 5.

For waste disposal by incineration, rack carts with boxes of packed waste are sequentially moved from boxes 1-4 to the incineration unit 7.

At the loading position of the combustion plant 7 (Fig. 6), one-color boxes are placed in the container 8 of the elevator 9.

At the loading height, the boxes from the tilting container 8 are moved to the gravity tray 10, where they are installed on the slide gate 11, which is then automatically retracted, freeing the passage, and the boxes are moved along the inclined part of the tray 10 to the vertical furnace 12, where they are installed on the grate 13 of its chamber 14 burning.

Furnace 12 is pre-ignited manually with combustible material. A feature of the grate 13 is that they are made of perforated tubes connected with the forced hot air duct 15, resulting in autothermal active combustion in the volume of waste at an average temperature of 1150°C.

The combustion chamber 14 through the central nozzle 16 communicates with the upper afterburner chamber 17, where the oxidation of combustion gases occurs in an environment of positive oxygen balance created by

forced blowing of hot air (with a temperature of about 250°C) from slotted holes (not shown conventionally) of the duct 18, distributed around the perimeter of the nozzle 16.

Additionally, hot air is blown from the air duct 19 to the confuser 20 of the afterburner chamber 17, as a result of which the temperature rises to an average of 1250 ° C, ensuring the combustion mode to the final oxidation products.

The gaseous products of combustion (exhaust gases from the furnace 12) are removed through the branch pipe 21, which is connected to the exhaust fan 22, which creates a vacuum inside the installation 7 and which removes pure gaseous products into the atmosphere through the exhaust pipe 23 to a height for dispersion.

The branch pipe 21 is connected to the heat exchanger 24, where the air of the coil 25 is heated to 300-320°C and then evenly distributed through the air ducts 15, 18 and 19 to form a calculated excess of oxygen at a given height of the vertical furnace 12.

Under the heat exchanger 24, the exhaust gases react with the process alkaline liquid (pH in the range of 11.8-12.6) in the scrubber 26 by counter showering, cooling the exhaust gases to a temperature of 650-700°C.

Further, the exhaust gases in the autonomously replaceable bubbler 27 jet overcome the layer of the working fluid, chemically interacting and cooling down to a temperature of 400-450°C.

From the bubbler 27, the exhaust gases enter the liquid phase condensation column 28 on the developed surface of the Raschig rings 29, providing a decrease in temperature to 200-250 ° C, and drip effluents from the water mist generator 30 (droplet size 30-50 μm), where agglomeration of suspended solid particles with the formation of droplets flowing down the column 28.

From the column 28, an environmentally friendly aerosol with a temperature of 40-50°C is fed through the main pipeline 31 by an exhaust fan 22 into the exhaust pipe 23 and then from the latter - at a height into the atmosphere.

Experimental verification of the proposed method in an optimized sequence of technological operations in an industrial plant (Fig. 6) generally confirmed the effectiveness of the neutralization of healthcare waste, and the essential features of the proposed method do not collectively follow directly from the formulation of the technical problem, that is, they are not obvious to specialists in environmental protection technology environment.

The implementation of the method according to the invention is possible with the regulatory regulation of the protocol of mandatory sequential actions for health care facilities for the collection, storage, movement and disposal of healthcare waste by local combustion in an industrial plant of a complex process flow, the manufacture of which is possible at the production site operating in the industry.

From the foregoing, it can be concluded that the invention according to the present application complies with the conditions of patentability.

Claims (3)

1. A method for the disposal of healthcare waste, containing separate collection at the places of generation in colored plastic bags with their subsequent placement in sealed cardboard storage boxes that have thermoplastic lamination of white, yellow and red color, respectively, for storing waste of classes A, B, D in danger in a lockable room separately in trolleys, while the necks of the boxes are folded along the corrugations to connect the butt end by melting with a power tool, then the boxes with waste loaded into the trolleys are moved to a lockable box at the site of intra-yard local storage, from where the boxes are reloaded into an insulated body equipped with a refrigerator and an ultraviolet recirculator a vehicle for transporting waste, equipped with an electronic unit for satellite navigation and communication with a control and monitoring center for the route of transporting waste to the facility, where thermal neutralization is carried out by autothermal compression combustion in a vertical two-chamber furnace with distributed air blast, which has a central nozzle between the chambers and means for cleaning exhaust gases, and the vehicle at the facility is unloaded into boxes for separate storage of waste according to hazard classes, while co-incineration of class B and C waste is allowed, which differs in that that the packed boxes with waste by color are placed separately in rack carts installed in the courtyard box, which are rotated to be replaced by conformal carts from the vehicle body when it is loaded with packaged waste, at the accommodation facility the rack carts loaded with single-color boxes are moved to autonomous boxes for separate storage , filling the body of the vehicle with empty replaceable rack trolleys from their free stock, rack trolleys with single-color boxes are separately fed for disposal by incineration from storage boxes for loading boxes into a vertical oven, where they provide cutting volumetric autothermal combustion in a positive oxygen balance environment as a result of forced air supply, preheated in the through-flow heat exchanger by the energy of furnace gases leaving the afterburning chamber, which is dosed into a tubular perforated grate, inside the central nozzle between the furnace chambers and along the perimeter of its confuser in the afterburning chamber , the exhaust gas branch pipe of which is connected through an exhaust fan to a pipe leading to a height with a line, through sequentially mounted in interconnection through vertical columns for purification by the reaction interaction of exhaust gases with a process liquid, in particular, through successive counter showering, bubbling, condensation on a developed surface, mainly Raschig rings, and agglomeration of suspended solids in a water mist layer. 2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that healthcare waste, which is the household waste of the vital activity of patients in the wards of their detention in a medical and preventive organization (HPO), is collected in black plastic bags, which are sealed in black laminated boxes and stored in in a separate room of the health care facility, together with waste of classes A, B, C, and for storage in the box of the courtyard area, black sealed boxes are placed in a separate rotating rack cart, and at the facility they are placed in a separate storage box, burning both independently and together with waste of any classes A, B, C of danger. 3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the sealed boxes are loaded onto the grate of the combustion chamber along the gravity tray through the slide gate, synchronized with the unloading of the boxes from the container on the lift.

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