Dr. Suresh D. Pillai, a Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientist and director of the National Center for Electron Beam Research at College Station, said electron-beam technology may be a better way to sanitize Ebola waste, according to an article on the Infection Control Today website.

The center’s main instrumentation, a 10-million electron volt, 18-kilowatt, electron beam (e-beam) has primarily been used for research in food safety, food quality, environmental protection and aerospace applications. But the technology is capable of being adapted to many other applications, such as the sterilization of wastewater and hospital waste, according to the article. 

For some time, hospitals have used similar technology, though at lower power levels, to sterilize equipment. But contagious hospital waste, such as disposable equipment, is typically treated with pressurized steam or incinerated. E-beam technology could be potentially more cost effective and environmentally safer.

“One of the beautiful aspects of electron-beam technology is that it uses commercial electricity to generate the electrons,” Pillai said. “There is no need for radioactive isotopes or chemicals.”

Read the article.