ILOILO CITY – The University of the Philippines-Visayas has created an environmentally friendly technology called the Oil-Based Thermal Disinfection (OBTD) to treat hospital waste.

OIL-Based Thermal Disinfection (OBTD) technology treats hazardous hospital waste. (Courtesy of UP Visayas)
OBTD uses coconut or vegetable oil as a heating medium of non-burn disinfection technology. It is designed to disinfect waste generated by hospitals with a higher temperature and in a shorter period of time.
At present, most non-burn disinfection technology can only generate 121 degrees Celsius. With OBTD, hospital waste can be burned from 170 to 200 degrees Celsius.
OBTD was developed by the UP-Visayas School of Technology and built by FILARB Waste Management Services whose founder Dr. Ramer Bautista is a university faculty.
The OBTD has funding from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the Medical City Iloilo (TMCI) is the first to use it.
The partnership between UP-Visayas, FILARB, TMCI, and DOST aims to address waste problems of hospitals not only in the Western Visayas region but also across the country.