Guideline Study to Convert Used PPE and Sterile Waste to Become Energy by 3-State Gasification Technology
Guideline Study to Convert Used PPE and Sterile Waste to Become Energy by 3-State Gasification Technology
From the newly emerged pandemic situation of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) which has spread rapidly throughout the world, including Thailand, other than causing the public health problem which people around the world have been being faced with, the management in handling waste arising from the preventions and treatments of patients being sick of the outbreak of COVID-19, which are Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), rubber gloves, sanitary masks, hair caps, shoe covers including the Single-Use PPE, is yet another challenge that the world over has to take into account. At present, most of the management of infectious waste from public health facilities is by way of the incineration including the disposal with a steam sterilization system before being further disposed of as the community waste. The scope of all these management methods are limited. Should there be a lack of efficiency and standard, it would possibly have a serious consequence upon the community health and the environment in general. For this reason, Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technological Research (TISTR), by the Expertise Center for Clean Energy Innovation and Environment (ECCEIE) has come up with an idea to adopt the 3-State Gasification for use in the management of the sterile waste or waste having been sterilized by steam for disposal and conversion to energy.
The 3-State Gasification is a prototype factory level technology installed at Lam Ta Khong Research Station, Nakhon Ratchasima Province, to support 10 tons of raw materials per day to produce power energy from biomass and waste, consisting of 5 main component parts which are the Raw Material Feeding and Drying System, Synthetic Fuel Gas Production Furnace System, Gas Cleaning System, Water Quality Improvement System and a 200kW Generator. The gasification output is the synthetic fuel gas comprising hydrogen and carbon monoxide. This synthetic gas can be used as a fuel to generate electricity and heat. This 3-State Gasification process is highly efficient yields pollution lower than the general combustions.
In 2019, TISTR had collaborated with Namwiwat Engineering (1992) Company Limited and was successful in conducting the feasibility study in the application of the 3-State Gasification system for sterile waste disposal and conversion to power energy. And in 2020, TISTR carried on the operations to expand the scope of research to be more perfect with the support on the research budget by the Program Management Unit for Competitiveness (PMU C) to study the conversion of used PPE and sterile waste to energy including the building of the prototype and a learning center on the management of sterile used PPE in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and other sterile waste in order to convert them to energy with low pollution by the 3-State Gasification technology under the “Guideline Study Project to Convert Used PPE and Sterile Waste to Become Energy by 3-State Gasification Technology.”
