Synthetic Effects and Economic Accounting of Low-temperature Pyrolysis Process of Typical Medical Waste based on Kinetics Analysis

¹ Huazhong University of Science and Technology, School of Energy and Power Engineering, 430074 Wuhan, China
² State Key Laboratory of Coal Combustion Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 430074 Wuhan, China

^* Corresponding author: hust_laj@mail.hust.edu.cn

Abstract

The thermogravimetric (TG) analysis was adopted to study the pyrolysis characteristics of two typical medical wastes at different heating rates (10, 20, and 50 °C/min), and the kinetic parameters were analyzed by the Coats-Redfern method. Finally, the economic evaluation of the technology was carried out. The results showed that the two typical medical wastes both have only one weight loss peak. The syringes and bamboo sticks pyrolysis ranged from 264.80 to 554.07 °C and from 205.66 to 487.05 °C, respectively. With the increase of the heating rate, the initial, final and peak temperatures of the two raw materials shifted to higher values. The pyrolysis reaction mechanisms of the syringes and bamboo sticks were summarized as the nucleation growth model (A2.5) and the second-order model (F2). The total investment of medical waste pyrolysis project is 59 million yuan, and the annual net gain is 11.85 million yuan. The investment recovery period of the project takes five years.