Pyropure sends pyrolysis unit to tackle Ebola in West Africa

ApplauseIn a generous act of compassion Hampshire based technology developer, PyroPure, is to donate one of its on-site medical waste pyrolysis systems to West Africa in a bid to help stop the spread of the Ebola – particularly amongst health professionals treating victims of the deadly virus.

The company’s latest move follows a World Health Organisation (WHO) report that found that the devastation is much worse that initially feared.

In a recent statement the WHO said that “the numbers of reported cases and deaths vastly underestimate the magnitude of the outbreak” and that “the outbreak is expected to continue for some time”.

PyroPure’s system features a 100 litre chamber, which is enough for around two regular bin bags of waste. To treat the waste it uses both pyrolysis, in which the waste is heated in the absence of oxygen and gasification where the waste is processed in the presence of very little oxygen.

According to Andrew Hamilton, chief executive of PyroPure, the chamber up to around 500°C – 600°C and all the organic waste vaporises, primarily into CO. That gas is then put through a catalytic converter, which at around 400°C converts the CO and other tars and polluting gases into clean CO2.

The system is said to be capable of transforming 6kg to 12kg of any type of organic waste into a handful of residue, while recovering energy in form of heat and safely sterilising the waste.

The move to send one of its machines to West Africa follows the recent call from Peter Selkirk, the company’s executive chairman, for UK hospitals to rethink their approach to hazardous waste disposal in the wake of the outbreak. (See WMW Story)

“Whilst our gesture only represents a small part of a huge operation we hope that the contribution goes some way to halt the outbreak,” Selkirk.

PyroPure said that it is currently assembling an in-house team who will travel out to West Africa to install the system and train health practitioners responsible for handling hazardous and potentially infectious medical waste.

Well done, Pyropure

 

 

 

 

 

1 Comment


  1. Predictably, there is a multi-faceted approach to waste management in this Ebola crisis. In the US, Medi-Burn is hurriedly manufacturing diesel-fuelled and self-contained medical waste incinerators to Sierra Leone.

    Much help is needed, to support those on the ground. No one system is likely to be better than any other, though locally different systems may be ranked by reliability. Subsequently, a detailed analysis of the key attributes of each waste treatment system will be hugely valuable, not in competition but to identify the particular benefits of each system type, to identify its best sphere of application.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.