title: Study on pyrolysis of typical medical waste materials by using TG-FTIR analysis.
abstract: Pyrolysis of certain medical waste materials was studied using thermogravimetric analyzer coupled with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (TG-FTIR). Pyrolysis characteristics of three common materials were discussed. The pyrolysis of absorbent cotton turned out to be the most concentrative, followed by medical respirator and bamboo stick. From TG and DTG curves, pyrolysis of these three materials occurred in single, two and three stages respectively. Evolved volatile products from all these three materials included 2-butanone, benzaldehyde, formic acid, acetic acid, hydrocarbon, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and water; whereas no sulphur dioxide, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide was detected. There are several differences in yield among them. However, the study in this paper is essential for medical waste pyrolysis model, the TG-FTIR approach is potential to provide valuable inputs for predictive modeling of medical waste pyrolysis. More studied are needed to get the kinetic parameters and pyrolysis models that can predict yields and evolution patterns of selected volatile products for CFD applications.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Clean Energy Utilization, Zhejiang University, Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, PR China. sophiczhu@hotmail.com
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: X G
authors.initials: XG
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Y E
authors.initials: YE
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.forename: K F
authors.initials: KF
authors.lastname: Cen
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis; D006358:Hot Temperature; D008506:Medical Waste; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; D013818:Thermogravimetry; D014835:Volatilization; D018505:Waste Management / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D008506:Medical Waste