Hydrothermal deconstruction of single-use personal protective equipment: process design and economic performance

Xing Xin; Faisal Javid; William A Anderson; José G B Derraik; Trudy Sullivan; Yvonne C Anderson; Saeid Baroutian

doi:10.1016/j.psep.2022.08.060

Hydrothermal deconstruction of single-use personal protective equipment: process design and economic performance

Process Saf Environ Prot. 2022 Oct:166:565-573. doi: 10.1016/j.psep.2022.08.060. Epub 2022 Aug 27.

Authors

Xing Xin¹, Faisal Javid¹, William A Anderson², José G B Derraik³, Trudy Sullivan⁴, Yvonne C Anderson^{3

5

6}, Saeid Baroutian¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada.
³ Department of Paediatrics: Child & Youth Health, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
⁴ Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
⁵ enAble Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, WA, Australia.
⁶ Telethon Kids Institute, Perth Children's Hospital, Nedlands, WA, Australia.

Abstract

Increased demand for single-use personal protective equipment (PPE) during the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a marked increase in the amount of PPE waste and associated environmental pollution. Developing efficient and environmentally safe technologies to manage and dispose of this PPE waste stream is imperative. We designed and evaluated a hydrothermal deconstruction technology to reduce PPE waste by up to 99% in weight. Hydrothermal deconstruction of single-use PPE waste was modelled using experimental data in Aspen Plus. Techno-economic and sensitivity analyses were conducted, and the results showed that plant scale, plant lifetime, discount rate, and labour costs were the key factors affecting overall processing costs. For a 200 kg/batch plant under optimal conditions, the cost of processing PPE waste was found to be 10 NZD/kg (6 USD/kg), which is comparable to the conventional practice of autoclaving followed by landfilling. The potential environmental impacts of this process were found to be negligible; meanwhile, this practice significantly reduced the use of limited landfill space.

Keywords: COVID-19; Hydrothermal deconstruction; PPE; Process modelling; Wet oxidation.