COVID-19 pandemic has brought tremendous environmental burden due to huge amount of medical wastes (about 54,000 t/d as of November 22, 2020), including face mask, gloves, clothes, goggles, and sanitizer/disinfectant containers A proper waste management is urgently required to mitigate the spread of the disease, minimize the environmental impacts, and take their potential advantages for further utilization This work provides a prospective review on the possible thermochemical treatments for those COVID-19 related medical wastes (CMW), as well as their possible conversion to fuels The characteristics of each waste are initially analyzed and described, especially their potential as energy source It is clear that most of CMWs are dominated by plastic polymers Thermochemical processes, including incineration, torrefaction, pyrolysis, and gasification, are reviewed in terms of applicability for CMW In addition, the mechanical treatment of CMW into sanitized refuse-derived fuel (SRDF) is also discussed as the preliminary stage before thermochemical conversion In terms of material flexibility, incineration is practically applicable for all types of CMW, although it has the highest potential to emit the largest amount of CO2 and other harmful gases Furthermore, gasification and pyrolysis are considered promising in terms of energy conversion efficiency and environmental impacts On the other hand, carbonization faces several technical problems following thermal degradation due to insufficient operating temperature
Technological Review on Thermochemical Conversion of COVID-19-related Medical Wastes