Medical waste

The Converter® is born from the idea to transform the waste into a product free of risks, stable and dry, usable as fuel to produce energy in proper installations., while most of the waste treatment systems on the market transform one type of waste to another.
The Converter® aims to change the waste into a reusable material by transforming a reject into a product stable in time, that can be stored for a long time, transported when a sufficiently important quantity is obtained to justify the transportation toward its use.
Law in regard to hazardous waste disposal is changing faster worldwide and is focusing on distance reduction between the production and the disposal place in order to limit the risk of infection and epidemic diseases during the transportation phase.
To this global trend, we should add the fact that autoclaves are always less appropriate because of their high explosion risk and for their high maintenance costs. Moreover, waste coming from autoclaves is still wet: this means increase in weight and risk of infection. This waste is still dangerous, full of glass splinters and sharp objects. For those reasons it requires to be stored in rigid containers and sent away as soon as possible to avoid odors, fermentations, liquid drippings and other inconveniences.

The H SERIE

H serie Converter® is a range of 6 models specifically tailor-made for hospital infective waste or potentially infective waste.

Thanks to the power and flexibility of these machines, all types of waste coming from a sanitary structure can be treated including pricking and sharp objects, needles, disposable lancets, bandaging, diapers, gloves, catheters, syringes, probes, small bottles in glass and plastic, filters, residues of meal of the infectious departments, physiological matters, biologic cultures, residues of surgery and not easily recognizable anatomical parts, dead guinea pigs, etc.
H serie Converter® series realize in automatic way a thermal cycle that includes: waste grinding, evaporation of all contained liquids, heating to the 151 °C sterilization temperature and holding during 3 minutes by continuous dosage of water, cooling down and unloading of the dry treated material.

About the CONVERTER® technology

A NO-COMPETITORS CHOICE

ADVANTAGES

THE PROCESS

The Converter® technology treats waste of any provenience and composition to get simultaneously its sterilization or disinfection, physical modification, reduction of volume, dehydration and reduction of weight.
The process is patented and it covers all models because all Converter® series are manufactured under the same working principle. The peculiarity of the Converter® patent is that the waste is mechanically heated directly from its inside by means of the friction generated by material breaks, obtained by a powerful rotary blade made in Hardox, positioned on the cell bottom. All this is realized without using pressure or steam, yielding much more safety during the entire treatment process.
Thanks to the pressure reduction in the treatment cell, the evaporation temperature becomes lower allowing to obtain a final product reduced in weight and volume, totally dry and safe in less than 30 minutes. Fumes and condensate are extracted from the treatment cell and filtered in order to reduce the emissions up to zero. All Converter® machines just need water and electricity to run. With the Water Recirculation System the consumption can be lower to ZERO.

WATER RECIRCULATION SYSTEM

Basic models of Converter® condense the moisture removed from the treated waste, using a scrubber where the cooling water, taken from the net, is mixed with the vapour condensed one and discharged. As optional, to reduce the water consumption especially in the machines of big capacity, it is possible to request the condensate separation system, which keeps separate the cooling water from the vapour extracted from the treated waste and or use an existing cooling system. If the costumer hasn’t got a kind of cooling system with appropriate characteristics, there is another solution: to add a condensate separation system that suits properly. It allows to cool down and reuse repeatedly the same water reducing water consumption and also allows a remarkable reduction the quantity of liquid discharged. This necessity must be submitted with the order.
Two models of cooling unit are foreseen and OMPECO srl will choose the best one according to the customer’s site climate:

STERILIZATION

The moist heat method consists to submit for a certain time the material to a temperature sufficiently high in presence of water under liquid form. The combination causes the deterioration of the enzymes and proteins of the microorganisms and, by consequence, their death and the destruction of the spores. The effect is a lot faster in comparison to the method known as “dry heat” (asking also temperatures well much higher), because in this case the mechanism of action is based on the slowest oxidization by the air of the essentials of the cells. The autoclaves are the most known devices applying the moist heat method. For a physical law, by increasing the pressure also increases the boiling point of the water that, under pressure, remains under liquid form beyond 100°C. In general, the heating can be made either with electric means or also by injecting saturated steam.
The steam, produced on site or injected, acts as vector providing the material under treatment both for the heat and the liquid water by condensation of the steam itself. Pay attention that is neither the steam nor the pressure to cause the death of the microorganisms, being the pressure only one of the ways to have liquid water at a temperature higher than 100 °C. Indeed, by the tables of the saturated steam, we can observe for example, that at the relative pressure of 1 bar (say, 2 absolute bars) the water has boiling point of 121 °C. In the Converter® equipment no pressure is used but, when the previously dehydrated material has reached the sterilization temperature set at 151 °C, the injection of water allows to keep wet the material at high and firm temperature, while restoring continuously the water and the heat subtracted for evaporation of the water itself. While continuing to warm through the rotor and at the same time to inject water, the result is that, in the same time, the material is submitted to the high temperature and presence of water under liquid form.
The Converter® machines are projected to be compliant with the strictest rules, taking as a reference the norms asking that the sterilization process should be suitable to guarantee the abatement of a microbial load conventionally fixed in N = 1012 u.f.c. (units forming colonies) for every sterilization load, with a SAL (level of sterilization safety) not lower than 10-6 (Italy, UNI norm 10384/1994, law DPR 254/2003). In general, the crushing and the dehydration are also asked, to the goals of not to recognize the waste components and for a better efficiency of the treatment, as well as the reduction of volume and weight. The Converter guarantees therefore an abatement not lower than 10-18, say 18 logarithms that is one microorganism alive every 100.000.000.000.000.000 cycles.

The reaction rate depends on the temperature, the Converter® are designed to operate on two levels of temperature:

Each treatment cycle takes place with a certain sequence: loading the waste, grinding and heating up to 100 ° C, evaporation of each liquid component, heating up to 151 ° C (or up to 121 ° C), sterilization (pasteurization) through the injection of water, maintaining the temperature for 3 minutes, lowering the temperature, discharge by the centrifugal force.