Pharmaceutical blister packaging waste secondary resource
Discarded multilayer pharmaceutical blister packaging containing aluminium, polymers and adhesives, represented by hospital-collected transparent, white and silver-coloured fractions. This manufactured waste resource is distinct from aluminium as an element, beverage cans, beverage-carton hydropulping reject and the sulfur feed used to produce its leaching acid. Its composition varies with packaging construction; no element-level criticality is inherited.
Microbial & Biochemical Mechanisms (1)
Aluminium dissolution using culture-derived sulfuric acid liquor
bioleaching
Microbial
Associated Organisms:
Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans (NCBITaxon:930), Acidithiobacillus caldus (NCBITaxon:33059)
Acidic liquor generated by sulfur-oxidizing cultures was used in a separate spent-medium stage to dissolve aluminium from prepared blister waste. The laboratory evidence supports conditional leaching and layer separation, with a conditional biogenic-acid advantage over reagent acid at 22 degrees C that is absent at 50 degrees C. It does not establish direct cell attack, identified biosurfactant causality or isolated aluminium-product recovery from this feed.
Experimental Context & Analytical Limits:
Approximately 5 kg of waste from two hospitals in Lower Austria was sorted into transparent, white and silver-coloured fractions, then cut to about 1 x 1 cm or shredded below 4 or 2 mm. FTIR identified PVC, acrylic adhesive and additional packaging-dependent polymers. Section 3.1 reports about 12.6, 13.7 and 67.6% w/w Al respectively after acid dissolution of 2.5 g samples; these are batch-specific values. The study names A. thiooxidans DSM 504 and A. caldus DSM 9466 for upstream sulfur oxidation. Its blister lixiviant was separately produced in a semi-continuous reactor following Kremser et al. 2022, with 0.85 M sulfate and pH about 0.2, described as approximately 0.86 M sulfuric acid. The paper's lower-concentration sulfur comparison experiments are not the blister leaching batch. No exact sulfur-lot linkage from the biogas-residue comparison to that lixiviant is established. Flasks contained 150 mL liquid in 250 mL vessels, 2.5, 5.0 or 7.5% w/v waste, 22 degrees C and 150 rpm for up to nine days in triplicate. Commercial 0.86 M sulfuric acid was the comparator. Separate 50 degrees C and particle-size experiments used 7.5% w/v. The nominal 1 L stirred trials used below-4-mm transparent or white material, 7.5% w/v, 22 degrees C and 250 rpm for 14 days. Samples for Al analysis were filtered at 0.2 micrometres and measured with xylenol-orange spectrophotometry. The cited acid-production protocol filters withdrawn liquor, but the blister study does not independently demonstrate sterility of its applied liquor.
Approximately 5 kg of waste from two hospitals in Lower Austria was sorted into transparent, white and silver-coloured fractions, then cut to about 1 x 1 cm or shredded below 4 or 2 mm. FTIR identified PVC, acrylic adhesive and additional packaging-dependent polymers. Section 3.1 reports about 12.6, 13.7 and 67.6% w/w Al respectively after acid dissolution of 2.5 g samples; these are batch-specific values. The study names A. thiooxidans DSM 504 and A. caldus DSM 9466 for upstream sulfur oxidation. Its blister lixiviant was separately produced in a semi-continuous reactor following Kremser et al. 2022, with 0.85 M sulfate and pH about 0.2, described as approximately 0.86 M sulfuric acid. The paper's lower-concentration sulfur comparison experiments are not the blister leaching batch. No exact sulfur-lot linkage from the biogas-residue comparison to that lixiviant is established. Flasks contained 150 mL liquid in 250 mL vessels, 2.5, 5.0 or 7.5% w/v waste, 22 degrees C and 150 rpm for up to nine days in triplicate. Commercial 0.86 M sulfuric acid was the comparator. Separate 50 degrees C and particle-size experiments used 7.5% w/v. The nominal 1 L stirred trials used below-4-mm transparent or white material, 7.5% w/v, 22 degrees C and 250 rpm for 14 days. Samples for Al analysis were filtered at 0.2 micrometres and measured with xylenol-orange spectrophotometry. The cited acid-production protocol filters withdrawn liquor, but the blister study does not independently demonstrate sterility of its applied liquor.
Curated Evidence Points:
Support
Source:
kremser2023
Sections 2.5-2.6 and 3.3, Figures 2-4 support aluminium mobilization and separation of polymer-rich residues. The authors report near-complete leaching from transparent and white fractions within seven to nine days in flasks, while silver-coloured material reaches only about 36% at best. Its higher Al inventory, greater pH rise and changed redox potential accompany poorer release; those observations do not isolate the causal contribution of each factor. Later trials exclude the silver fraction.
Partial
Source:
kremser2023
Figure 3 and Section 3.3.2 show that commercial and biogenic acid perform similarly at 50 degrees C. Finer shredding did not materially improve the tested outcomes. Figure 4 reports approximately 90% and 81% Al leaching at day 14 for transparent and white material in the 1 L trials, below the flask results. These comparisons refute an unconditional advantage of biogenic acid or of increasing reactor size. Foam-associated Al retention is a proposed explanation, not a quantified inventory balance.
Partial
Source:
kremser2023
Reported percentages are retained as the authors' leaching estimates, not recalculated yields. The accessible rendition of Equation 2 places the solid Al inventory above the liquid inventory, opposite the usual released-fraction ratio; the intended calculation is unresolved. Some Figure 2 and 3 bars exceed 100%, and Section 3.3.1 later calls the silver material 63% Al instead of Section 3.1's 67.6%. No raw replicate data or complete solid-liquid Al balance resolves these differences here.
Partial
Source:
kremser2023
Biosurfactants and other metabolites are proposed from foam and acid-type differences, without chemical identification or a component-specific intervention. The reagent comparator does not match all medium solutes. Section 3.3.3 proposes hydroxide precipitation using earlier work; it does not supply a blister-specific isolated Al product yield or purity. Polymer reprocessing separately required thermal treatment, with ethyl acetate cleaning and stabilizer comparisons; discoloration persisted. These laboratory tests establish neither industrial deployment nor a process-wide economic or environmental advantage.
Context_only
Source:
kremser2022_acid
The cited upstream method uses DSM 504 and DSM 9466 for sulfur oxidation, with aerated, stirred acid production and filtration of withdrawn liquor. This explains the microbial origin of the leaching reagent. It does not authenticate the later blister liquor, assign strain-specific causality, or transfer incineration-slag outcomes to pharmaceutical packaging.
Context_only
Source:
dsm504
DSM 504 resolves to the study's A. thiooxidans collection label.
Context_only
Source:
dsm9466
DSM 9466 resolves to A. caldus C-SH12, consistent with the paper.
Context_only
Source:
ncbi_thiooxidans
The CURIE identifies the species, not DSM 504 or its stock provenance.
Context_only
Source:
ncbi_caldus
The CURIE identifies the species, not DSM 9466 or its role in the mixture.
Sources & References
-
kremser2023: Kremser, Schön, Gerl, Valera Gómez, Ramirez Espinosa, Morandini, Pérez Argilés, Monje Martínez and Guebitz (2023). Pharmaceutical blister waste recycling using biogenic sulfuric acid: Effect of sulfur source and blister material on bioleaching efficiency. Hydrometallurgy 221:106124. DOI 10.1016/j.hydromet.2023.106124; published journal version, Sections 2-4, Figures 1-5 and supplementary Figures S1-S4.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hydromet.2023.106124 (accessed 2026-10-11) -
kremser2022_acid: Kremser et al. (2022). Optimized biogenic sulfuric acid production and application in the treatment of waste incineration residues. Waste Management 144:182-190. DOI 10.1016/j.wasman.2022.03.025; Sections 2.2-2.4 provide the acid-production method referenced by the blister study. Incineration-residue outcomes are not blister measurements.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2022.03.025 (accessed 2026-10-11) -
dsm504: DSMZ catalogue DSM 504: Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans. The catalogue corroborates the collection label, not independent authentication of the experimental stock.
https://www.dsmz.de/collection/catalogue/details/culture/DSM-504 (accessed 2026-10-11) -
dsm9466: DSMZ catalogue DSM 9466: Acidithiobacillus caldus, strain C-SH12. Collection nomenclature does not assign a causal share within a mixed culture.
https://www.dsmz.de/collection/catalogue/details/culture/DSM-9466 (accessed 2026-10-11) -
ncbi_thiooxidans: NCBI Taxonomy 930, Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans, species identifier.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=930&mode=Info (accessed 2026-10-11) -
ncbi_caldus: NCBI Taxonomy 33059, Acidithiobacillus caldus, species identifier.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=33059&mode=Info (accessed 2026-10-11)
Curation History
| Timestamp | Curator | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
2026-10-11T15:35:11.843777Z |
Codex (GPT-6; Codex) | CREATE | Created the distinct pharmaceutical packaging resource and conditional culture-acid leaching observation, preserving acid-source separation, chemical-control and scale limits, calculation uncertainty and no blister-specific isolated aluminium-product yield. |
2026-10-11T15:39:55.705102+00:00 |
Codex (GPT-6; Codex) | EDIT | Corrected the direction of the biogenic-versus-reagent acid comparison after independent review issue 94; retained the high-temperature null and all original scientific limits. Original finding and CREATE history remain intact. |
Record source: data/records/pharmaceutical-blister-packaging-waste.yaml