Biomedical Engineering

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Browsing Biomedical Engineering by Author "Azeb, Tayework"

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    Evaluation of Energy Potential from Solid Medical Waste at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital
    (Addis Ababa University, 2018-09) Azeb, Tayework; Wondwossen, Bogale (PhD); Masreshaw, Demelash (PhD)
    The waste-to-energy conversion processes are expected to play an increasing important role in sustainable management of solid waste. The primary function of waste-to-energy technology has been volume reduction and power production. Waste management has become a critical issue as solid waste possesses potential health risk and damage to the environment. Management of solid medical waste has not yet got the priority it deserves. Researches indicated that in the past solid waste has done much damage to the environment and to public health. As we know Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital is the biggest hospital in Ethiopia. But the managing of solid medical waste is poor, even practice of incineration is very old and it is not environment friendly. The general objective of this study is to assess waste management practices and to evaluate the amount of energy that can be generated from solid medical waste at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital. The methodologies are descriptive and consist of the use of survey, in depth interviews, meeting, discussion and participant observed strategy with the concerned body of the hospital. It also involved in the identification and characterization (type and laboratories work) of waste type. After characterization Thermoflex software was used to estimate the power output. The result shows that the average solid medical waste generation rate was determined 1396.41 kg/day from this about 68.26 % was food waste, 14.68 % was plastic waste, 12.84 % was paper waste, 2.99 % was wood waste and 1.23% was cloth waste. The annual estimated waste generation was 507,923.57 kg or 507.9 tons. In general solid medical waste management was found in poor manner. The gross and net electric power output for a mass flow rate of 0.217 kg/s was 0.84MW and 0.731MW respectively. Based on the result, the net electric efficiency of the system was 18.96%. Based on the result the system was affected by ash content, moisture content, excess air and lower heating value here of optimizing input parameter then was increased power output from 840.6 kW to 891.3kW or 0.84MW to 0.89MW. To optimize the power output we can reduce boiler exit temperature and condenser pressure. And also minimizing of ash content and moisture content are improving the output.