Those in the pharma industry will know what a messy and difficult waste gelatin is.  Gelatin is a translucent, colorless and flavorless food ingredient, derived from collagen of animal body parts. It is commonly used as a gelling agent in food, medications, and drug and vitamin capsules.  It is an important functional bio-polymer widely used in foods to improve consistency and stability. It can be obtained from the skin and bones of animals, as well as from fish and insects, as it is an alternative source that is acceptable for halal and kosher products.  Gelatin is also used as a starting material for the production of blood substitutes such as plasma expanders. There are liquid pharmaceutical products containing gelatin and mineral salts. They help to stabilise the circulatory system in times of blood or plasma loss, as for example during an operation.

 

Today, a significant portion of the gelatin used in protein adhesives is from pharmaceutical and nutritional scrap gelatin, either in soft gel netting or hard capsule form. What is left over is a sheet of gelatin after a soft gel capsule is made is what poses a problem to the pharma industry for its disposal. This is because, if you store it, it starts melting slowly and spreading all around.

 

With this background, Haat went about finding a solution to solve this problem.  We were approached by a leading pharma company who manufacture such capsules. We got some gelatin net brought to our Works and had it tested. It burnt well, leaving very little ash. We, therefore, made an offer for our model PD incinerator.

 

The PD incinerator is a well-designed work horse, consuming very little fuel and producing NO VISIBLE SMOKE when burning wastes. The client himself witnessed the demo and satisfied himself before placing an order. The PD incinerator has only one burner

for both the primary and secondary chambers. Its design is such that the flue carrying the products of combustion from the primary chamber is recirculated repeatedly across and below the hearth, making it very `combustion efficient` by burning almost all the particulates in the process, producing a colourless and odourless smoke conforming to Ringleman `0`.  In addition, one of its safety features is that it has negative pressure in the chamber, posing no danger to the operator when the charging door or ash door is opened and no smoke comes out of the machine except from the stack.

 

We were, therefore, quite confident that it would work well. When we did performance trials on the incinerator before despatch, we loaded the entire rated capacity into the chamber and when the incinerator was fired, the molten gelatin started leaking from the charging door and the ash doors!  When further analysis on the nature of this material was done, it came to light that the gelatin net melts and flows like a liquid when it comes in contact with heat.

 

The answer to the problem was to load `little and often` of this difficult waste. We, therefore, made a jacketed hopper with provision for circulating the flue gas in the jacket to heat the waste so that it flows freely and in pre-determined rates into the incinerator chamber. The hopper was provided with a control valve with an actuator for periodic opening and closing. It was then loaded to the brim and the system switched ON. Now the incinerator could burn more than its rated capacity and there was no leakage of the liquid gelatin from anywhere.

 

This paved the way for one more PD incinerator order from this customer, followed by at least another 3 from other pharma companies.

 

Another difficult waste problem resolved!