Increasing Sterilization Efficiency of Shredder Autoclave on Medical Waste Using Ultraviolet Light Device

Abstract

This work involved investigating bacterial pollution of medical wastes produced by shredder autoclave at some local hospitals in Iraq. A modulation has been introduced to ensure sterilization performance through the use of Ultraviolet light on the hazardous wastes after being processed by shredder autoclave with different retention times at optical density of 270 nm in order to control the full killing of all kind of microbial life according to the environmental limits. The bacteria recovered from the wastes were identified through routine microscopically and biochemical tests and the results revealed the following species: Acinetobacter baumanii, Bacillus cereus, Clostridium difficilie, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia, Proteus mirabilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. The results showed ability of these bacteria to re-generate in the produced solid medical wastes within the periods of 72 hours that reaches up to 20 cell / ml, while the use of UV light in a retention time of 15 min. was able to destroy all bacterial growth in the same period of 72 hours   http://dx.doi.org/10.25130/tjps.25.2020.005