PYROCLAVE: Dayot’s invention impresses WHO

Through the innovation of Pyroclave, Dabawenyo inventors create a solution for one of the major problems of the World Health Organization which is having no environmentally friendly treatment for infectious waste at a more efficient cost.
Inventor Roderick “Ricky” Dayot, RAD Green Solution vice president for engineering and development, presented the Pyroclave technology to member of the Rotary Club of East Davao at The Marco Polo Davao yesterday, explaining that it is “a non-incineration thermal process, environmentally-safe, low-cost, medical waste management system.”
According to Dayot, Pyroclave is like a pressure cooker where liquefied petrolium gas (LPG) is used to heat infectious waste, then water will be added to increase temperature to produce another fuel called Syngas and turn medical waste into safe and disposable charcoal. Through this process, disinfection, carbonization and decomposition can be accomplished.
Pyroclave is a combination of Pyrolisis and autoclave. Pyrolisis is a decomposition process without the presence of oxygen to heat up matter. With this, the material will just decompose and will not burn, unlike in incineration. Autoclave, as described in the hospitals, is a disinfecting process using steam. This will produce water waste. However, with Pyroclave, there will be no waste water as waste will be heated just enough to dry.
Treating infectious medical waste is very important because, as Dayot said, infectious waste can trigger the spread of diseases, citing an example, “Did you know that hepatitis B can live outside the body for 17 days and other bacterial viruses can live for 5?”
The company that created Pyroclave, RAD Green Solutions, presented its innovation in Silicon Valley, California after being one of the winners in the ON3 Pitching Competitions in 2011 which is a business competition for start-up companies involved in Information Technology (I.T.) and green technology.
According to Dayot, while in California, they said, “You have something that we need” which gave us the chance to go global, our dream, considering the fact that our company is only three years old.”
RAD Green Technology is focusing on establishing an offsite facility which will serve as a centralized facility to serve all the hospitals in Davao City. This first offsite facility is located in New Carmen, Magtuod right in front of the dump site. The opening of this facility is on February 21 where a demonstration will also be done. The company will collect the infectious waste for delivery to, and treatment, in the offsite facility.
There is already an onsite facility of the Pyroclave technology at the San Pedro Hospital. The machine was placed there for free, but RAD Green Solutions will retain ownership of the machine. The machine is placed at the hospital provided that the hospital can produce 300 kilos of infectious waste a day for treatment. Actually, it produces 360 kilos a day. The RAD charges P20 per kilo of infectious waste treated.
The second offsite facility will be in Cagayan de Oro on February 23, the third will be in Bulacan in March, and RAD Green Solutions is eyeing five more offsite facilities in Metro Manila and Bali, Indoneisa within 2013.
Pyroclave is already patented in the United States of America, Philippines and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). It was also approved by the Department of Health, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and is certified by SGS International.
To protect their ownership of the technology, Dayot also clarified their business model saying, “We are not selling the technology itself, we will manufacture and operate it ourselves.”