18 research outputs found

    Study on the Feasibility of Hazardous Waste Recycling: The Case of Pharmaceutical Packaging

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    bottles in poly(ethyleneterephthalate) (PET), for syrup; plastic bags and films of varying composition and thickness];• pharmaceutical waste [flexible multi-layered (plastic and aluminium) sachets containing granular medicine].; Hazardous waste management should fulfil the following three main goals: (i) to protect human health and the environment, (ii) to reduce waste while conserving energy and natural resources and (iii) to reduce or eliminate the volume of waste to dispose of. The lasttwo of these goals may derive from recycling, which aims at reducing raw materials and energy consumption and decreasing the volume of waste materials that must be treated and disposed of.However, recycling must be conducted in a safe way, ensuring human health and environment protection. Recycling activities should be regulated at a different degree on the basis of the risk they cause to human health and the environment. A hazardous wastedestined for recycling must be identified by type and recycling process in order to determine its level of regulation.Pharmaceutical packaging represents a very small percentage of hazardous waste, but its management can cause problems for the environment, depending on the type of packaging waste is concerned. Such waste may include:• uncontaminated waste (assimilated to domestic waste: paper, cardboard, glass, plastic);• contaminated waste (paper, cardboard, glass, plastic), e.g. waste that has been in contact with cytotoxic products, blood, blood-derived products or radioactive products.Waste is created at all stages of the supply-chain: production, distribution and use of a pharmaceutical product. At each step, care therefore needs to be taken, either by the manufacturer or the end-user, to protect the environment.In several European countries, pharmaceutical manufacturers must dispose of their waste, or by themselves or by external specialized companies, and are encouraged to recover packaging waste. In both cases, waste management represents a considerable cost for themanufacurers.The use of environmental-friendly packaging (i.e. recyclable or degradable packaging) has to be considered. Valuable packaging materials, such as aluminium paper, glass and plastic materials, can been extensively recycled if they have not been in contact with toxic or dangerous substances.The chapter is focused on a feasibility study for the management of packaging waste from a pharmaceutical plant, considering the following phases:• waste materials characterization;• preliminary tests on waste processing;• set up of size reduction (comminution) operations.Experimental tests have been executed on several typologies of packing, as listed:• primary packaging [bottles in high density polyethylene (HDPE), for suspension to be reconstitute

    Separating pro-environment technologies for waste treatment, soil and sediments remediation

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    When dealing with environmental issues, most of the times it is necessary to deal with contaminants or pollutants, which have to be removed from waste materials or from natural matrices. © 2012 Bentham Science Publishers. All rights reserved

    Contribution of image analysis to the definition of explosibility of fine particles resulting from waste recycling process - art. no. 66962B

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    In waste recycling processes, the development of comminution technologies is one of the main actions to improve the quality of recycled products. This involves a rise in fine particles production, which could have some effects on explosibility properties of materials. This paper reports the results of experiments done to examine the explosibility of the fine particles resulting from waste recycling process. Tests have been conducted for the products derived from milling processes operated in different operative conditions. In particular, the comminution tests have been executed varying the milling temperature by refrigerant agents. The materials utilized in explosibility tests were different typologies of plastics coming from waste products (PET, ABS and PP), characterized by size lower than 1 mm. The results of explosibility tests, carried out by mean of a Hartmann Apparatus, have been compared with the data derived from image analysis procedure aimed to measure the morphological characteristics of particles. For each typology of material, the propensity to explode appears to be correlated not only to particle size, but also to morphological properties, linked to the operative condition of the milling process

    The pattern of cryo-comminution products

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    In order to obtain a proper pattern of the character-distribution of a set of particles, a new approach has been pointed out. Different methods of modeling the series of data coming from size characterization have been taken into consideration. In particular, Fourier analysis has been applied in order to extract new parameters (features) suitable to enhance the differences between size-distributions coming from different operating conditions in comminution. In such a way the size-distribution, related to a set of comminuted particles, has been processed as a signal (size vector) in order to extract the feature set. The results have been compared in order to understand the effectiveness of each method pointed out for data analysis. In particular, some values of the sine coefficients of the Fourier series, related to the size vector of a particle set, are able to represent the pattern of the size-distribution after comminution. As an example, size-distribution, obtained after cryo-comminution under different temperature conditions, can be modeled by a second order equation function of four selected sine coefficients of Fourier analysis

    The pattern of fine comminution products

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    A new approach is suggested for the purposes of obtaining a proper character-distribution pattern of a particle set. Different methods of modeling the series of size characterization data are examined. Fourier analysis is applied to detail new parameters (features) for enhancing the differences between size distributions under different comminution operating conditions. Size distribution relating to a set of comminuted particles is processed as a signal (size vector) to extract the feature set. The results are compared to provide an insight into the effectiveness of each data analysis method. In particular, some of the Fourier series sine-coefficient values, relating to the size vector of a particle set, can represent the post-comminution size-distribution pattern. For example, size distribution following cryogenic comminution under different temperature conditions can be modeled using a second-order equation function of four selected Fourier analysis sine coefficients

    Recycling of multi-layered waste packaging

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    The market of multi-layered packaging has been strongly increasing during the last years and thus the opportunity to recycle waste coming from this kind of materials has been taken into considered. The goal of this research work has been paper and aluminium recovering from multi-layered packaging (composite material) for food applications. In order to recycle the component materials, liberation has been achieved through cryo-comminution processes using liquid nitrogen as a refrigerant agent both for preconditioning the materials to be comminuted and for lowering the temperature of the milling chamber during the comminution process. Recovery of paper and aluminium after comminution has been obtained through a two-stage separation circuit: a classification step followed a flotation step. High grades in aluminium and paper have been reached in the final products. The good results obtained on a lab scale should be taken into consideration for the setting up a recycling industrial process

    Electrical separation of plastics coming from special waste

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    Minimisation of waste to landfilling is recognised as a priorityin waste management byEuropean rules. In order to achieve this goal, developing suitable technologies for waste recycling is therefore of great importance. To achieve this aim the technologies utilised for mineral processing can be taken into consideration to develop recycling systems. In particular comminution and separation processes can be adopted to recover valuable materials from composite waste. In this work the possibilityof recycling pharmaceutical blister packaging has been investigated. A suitable comminution process has been applied in order to obtain the liberation of the plastic and aluminium components. Experiments of electrical separation have been carried out in order to point out the influence of the process parameters on the selections of the different materials and to set up the optimum operating conditions

    Waste characterization by scanning electron microscopy for material recovery

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    Worldwide legislation coming into force requires considering new waste streams in order to achieve higher targets for material recovery and recycling. It is necessary, therefore, to manage waste materials in which different components are linked together and contaminants of various origins are present. Waste materials thus need to be treated that have a complex and often unknown composition and present different structural, morphological, and chemical properties. The physical and chemical characterization of solid waste is an essential step for the development of suitable treatment strategies, aimed at the recovery of one or more waste components. Scanning electron microscopy appears to be in most cases very helpful for waste characterization, providing information on material size, shape, structure, texture, distribution, and composition. Examples of waste characterization through scanning electron microscopy, finalized to material recovery, are reported. The waste materials taken into consideration include solids of different nature, such as spent lead batteries, cathode ray tubes (CRT), and printed circuit boards (PCB)
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