Environmental Scenario

Problem

The greatest world problem related to waste if the difficulty in finding an effective way to treat it. Incinerating it or gasifying it (even with the plasma technology) involves the abundant presence of atmospheric air and then the true environmental evils arise. Excess of air implies introducing a lot of oxygen in the process for combustion or gasification.

Highly-harmful components differentiate industrial and hospital waste (considered a biological hazard) from municipal waste, such as laboratory blades, syringes, PVC gloves, needles, transfusion bags, and possibly-harmful chemical substances such as reagents, acid residues, expired medicines, radioactive material, sludge, oils, etc.

The incineration or burning of hospital, municipal, or industrial waste produces a great quantity of carcinogenic substances such as PCDD, PCDF, and TCDD. This fact was discovered through researches done in the 70’s. Besides, this process generates ashes, which - as previously mentioned - must be placed in landfills.
In case of hospital and industrial wastes, due to the components present in the waste, the quantity of heavy metals in the ashes derived from incineration is absurdly high. There is still a high increase of risk of groundwater contamination when these wastes be placed in landfills.

The presence of components such as chlorine in these types of wastes can also greatly increase the generation of carcinogenic wastes, which are present in the exhaust gases from combustion and in the microparticles generated.

The currently-applicable laws (such as the Solid Wastes National Policy, sanctioned in August, 2010, which determines the prohibition of landfills) can make the treatment of these special wastes even more expensive, what virtually demands the search for new waste-treatment technologies that can make the process cheaper and less pollutant.

The dry-distillation technology used in Vorax - UTR DuoTherm (via a temperature gradient, making the waste be heated and pyrolyzed in the first source and vitrified in the second source, in the absence of oxygen) is the most effective solution ever made in the whole world.

The VORAX machine

The DuoTherm technology is a technological innovation in which a reactor with two thermal sources generate a heat gradient at high temperatures between these sources. The reactor does not have a refractory like the conventional models, except in its core, and - for this reason - the equipment ends up being light and with the need of little maintenance, being able to be used in hospitals, industries, ships, cities, etc. In other words, anywhere that needs waste treatment, even at a small space.

During the process, the waste is fully disintegrated and liquefied, which considerably reduces the formation of pollutants that are harmful to the environment and to human health. The organic-waste mass reduction in this process is 10:1 and the volume reduction is from 100:1 to 200:1, according to the category of the processed waste.