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Davao invention gets int'l interest
AMONG the many attributes Davao City has been drummed up to have, it is more known among the health care industry as being the only city in the Philippines to have a comprehensive program for the collection, treatment and disposal of infectious medical wastes. The vital component in this distinction is a Dabawenyo invention that is now slowly getting recognition and patronage outside the country.
The technology devel- oped in the city is known as Pyroclave technology of the RAD Green Solutions, an invention by
Dabawenyo engineer, Roderick S. Dayot, vice president for engineering of RAD.
Just recently RAD forged a business arrangement with Mubadara Corporation, a private company based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its waste management unit, Kawn International, to explore the market territories under the Gulf Cooperating Council (KCC) and Middle East North Africa (Mena) Region.
A memorandum of understanding has already been signed between RAD, represented by its CEO Ivan Lim and Engr. Dayot, and Kawn's CEO Khalid Othman Hassan, Pyroclave Corporation general manager Yen G. Ansaldo told Sun. Star Davao last week. The contract will follow later as there are still protocols to be followed.
This will take some time, she said, because since the deal involves medical wastes, then Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health and Environmental Protection Administration (the equivalent of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources here) still has to check and approve the Pyroclave unit.
They are confident the technology will pass muster, she said, still, there are procedures to be followed.
"Kawn hopes to get it approved in the next three to four months," Ansaldo said. Once the procedures are complied with, then two units of the Pyroclave Mantis will be shipped out.
Pyroclave system is "a non-burn, bio-medical waste treatment technology" that has been consistently shown to be much better than emission standards set by the Philippine Clean Air Act.
Medical wastes are among the most hazardous solid waste there is. There are three ways of dealing with medical waste, the highly pollutant incineration, which burns wastes and turn these to ash while releasing all carbon to the air; autoclave, which uses steam and pressure at 121 degrees centigrade, which while cleaning up the waste increases its bulk because of the added moisture, and; pyrolysis, which not only turns waste to carbon but also reduces the total waste to just around 30% of its original volume. Pyroclave uses pyrolysis.
"There's a similar technology that we are aware of, an Italian technology that also uses pyrolysis for hazardous wastes, pero gamay ang volume na makaya nila (but this technology can process a smaller volume at any given time)," Ansaldo said.
Ansaldo said just about every hospital waste except scalpels and scissors can be processed by Pyroclave.
In Davao City, they are already servicing all major private hospitals.
Pyroclave has two models, the Mantis and the Mantis Optima. Mantis is for big volumes, its biggest system has a capacity of 400 kilograms per hour. Mantis Optima is for smaller volumes, the smallest system of which has a capacity of 50 kilograms per hour. The two models have their own variations, the E-Mantis only produces dry and shredded waste outcome unlike the Mantis that can either put out dry and shredded processed waste or carbon and char. The same is with the Mantis Optima and EMantis Optima.
These are operated hands-free as medical wastes are loaded on a hopper that deposit these into the shredder.
Pyroclave technology prides itself with being more energy-efficient as it achieves more heat with less fuel, reaching a chamber temperature of 200 to 700 degrees Celsius, far above the Department of Health standard for hospital waste treatment of 121 degrees Celsius. It also features a fly wheel system that achieves more torque and shredding power using less electricity.
In the Philippines, Pyroclave has two facilities in operation, one is Valenzuela City and the other one in Davao City. Just last July 2016, South Cotabato province also acquired an Optima and eyes to service the hospital wastes of surrounding provinces as well.
Considering the volume of wastes generated by medical health facilities, efficiency in handling these wastes is a necessity. Ansaldo said that rough estimate of wastes generated is 1/2 kilo of medical waste per bed per day excluding the wastes generated in outpatient departments. That is indeed a lot of wastes. For an idea of how big a volume that is, Davao Doctors Hospital alone has 250 beds or an average of 125 kilos of medical wastes a day for its in-hospital services.
Just five years since Pyroclave's invention in 2011, RAD GreenSolutions has already earned the distinction of "Outstanding Invention" in the Philippine Regional Invention Contest and Exhibit of the Department of Science and Technology, and also won the Environment Protection Category on Design Solution for 2015 of the Department of Trade and Industry.