April 8, 2003

Chemical Engineering Seniors Win Honorable Mention for Medical Waste Treatment Design

Laura Robinson, Melanie Chin and Vann Pearce, seniors in chemical engineering, recently won an honorable mention in Health Care Without Harm’s International Competition for Innovative Technologies for the Treatment of Medical Waste in Rural Areas.  Health Care Without Harm is an international organization dedicated to environmentally responsible health care. 

The purpose of the competition is to promote the search for “cleaner, safer, low-cost appropriate technologies to treat medical waste in rural areas.”  Robinson, Chin and Pearce’s preliminary design was one of 30 chosen for the contest.  They recently found out that they had received one of the five honorable mention awards from a panel of seven judges. 

Their design process is simple and inexpensive to implement and execute.  A stainless steel drum with a conical section is filled with waste to be disinfected.  Water and either hydrated lime or quicklime are added to the vessel to form a highly basic solution.  After the mixture is stirred, it sits for three hours, during which time the proteins and DNA are degraded, leading to ruptured cells and digested tissue.  At the end of the treatment, the waste is disposed of in a landfill or spread on soil as a fertilizer.

Formal public announcements of the winners were made on April 7, World Health Day.  The results of the competition will be presented to the World Health Organization’s General Assembly in Geneva in May.

— mcblief —

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