PI: Prof. Sandeep Kumar, Department of Energy Science & Engineering

Co-PI: Prof. Sanjay Mahajani, Department of Chemical Engineering

In the scenario of the Covid-19 crisis, members of heath care agencies, municipality waste management teams and housekeeping units are at much greater risk. Thousands of health workers in China, Italy and now in India have been reported to be infected or have died. As per the guidelines, a single-use mask shouldn’t be used for more than six hours or, on more than one occasion, and which if done, may increase chances of infection. This has led to a huge amount of highly contaminated waste spreading the risk of the disease further. Though big hospitals in metro cities have systems in place for medical waste collection and incineration, there is a high risk in proposed quarantine centres in schools, guest houses, hotels, grounds, trains, etc. which lack such incineration systems and trained workers handling such contaminated medical waste. In the coming weeks, more and more such quarantine facilities will be required and coming up. There is thus an urgent need for the development of portable and small scale incinerators which can be used in such make-shift hospitals or quarantine centres.The proposed solution looks into the development of a simple, portable and cost effective incineration system for only masks/gloves which can be used in small hospitals and quarantine centres.The focus is on designing a system using the available resources to minimize the manufacturing time scale for mass production.The solution can also become workable for the safe disposal of medical waste/sanitary napkins in small clinics/hospitals throughout the country which lackincineration facilities, by neighbouring municipalities.