Variables Affecting the Combustion Efficiency of a Clinical Waste Incineration Process

Incineration is known to be the best available option for treating clinical waste, particularly the pathological related waste. A proper operation of the incinerator is essential to ensure complete destruction of the waste. It is anticipated that variables such as feed rate (waste), both the combustion temperatures of the Primary Combustion Chamber (PCC) and Secondary Combustion Chamber (SCC), fuel and combustion air consumption play a major role in affecting the performance of the incineration process. Particularly, the combustion efficiency (one of the performance indicators) of the incinerator determined by the presence of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emission after the SCC must be continuously monitored. In this regard, a study to investigate the relationship between variables affecting the combustion efficiency, namely waste, temperatures and fuel, were performed using regression analysis and further verified by ANOVA. Results showed that waste, primary and secondary combustion temperatures contribute significantly to the combustion efficiency of the process. The correlation between these affecting variables were also investigated and discussed in the paper