A Medical Waste Sterilizer

Abstract

Sterilization of medical waste is very important for the environment, as the exposition may result in various diseases because of viral or bacterial content of the waste. There are devices developed for this purpose aiming to sterilize the waste in a form called batch process, meaning that a certain amount of waste is placed into the system and subjected to a sterilization procedure for a while and removed from the system afterwards. The procedure is repeated by the next set of waste till the whole set is sterilized.

Our aim, however, is to design a device, a rotating cylindrical container having tubular lights attached to the walls inside, through which the waste is exposed to ultraviolet light as it gets rotated and moved towards the exit. The process will continue till the whole set is fed into the system. Such a device would be more effective as compared to batch processing types. The study group is asked to develop a mathematical model to analyse the effect of the number and location of tubes which will lead to maximal exposure during certain amount of time, which also needs an estimate, the sample will reside in the device before it gets discharged.