Ecosolvent tool

Capello, C., S. Hellweg, and K. Hungerbiihler. 2007. Environmental assessment of waste-solvent treatment options Part I The ecosolvent tool. J. Ind. Ecol. 11 26-38. (The Ecosolvent Tool, ETH Zurich, Safety Environmental Technology Group, Zurich, http //www.sust-chem.ethz/tools/ecosolvent.)... 

The other uses the Ecosolvent tool (Capello et al., 2006) to consider the cumulative energy demand (CED) over a substance s whole life cycle. Three figures are arrived at. The first is the CED for its production, reported in megajoules per kilogram of solvent. The net CED after recovery by distillation is calculated assuming 90% recovery, as 10% of the CED for production plus the energy consumed by the distillation of the other 90%. The net CED after incineration is that for production less the energy that may be recovered by efficient incineration. A few examples are listed in Table 8.1. 

Capello C, Hellweg S, Hungerbiihler J. The Ecosolvent Tool. Zurich ETH Zurich, Safety Environmental Technology Group 2006. 

Fischer and co-workers undertook a LCA of the 26 organic solvents which they had already assessed in terms of EHS criteria (see above).They used the Eco-solvent software tool (http //www.sust-chem.ethz.ch/tools/ecosolvent/), which on the basis of industrial data considers the birth of the solvent (its petrochemical production) and its death by either a distillation process or treatment in a hazardous waste incineration plant. For both types of end-of-life treatment, environmental credits were granted where appropriate, e.g. solvent recovery and reuse upon distillation. The results of this assessment are shown in Figure 1.2. From an LCA perspective, tetrahydrofuran (THF), butyl acetate, cyclohexanone and 1-propanol are not good solvents. This is primarily due to the environmental... 

Anonymous. Available at http//www.sust-chem.ethz.ch/tools/ecosolvent. Accessed February 11, 2015. 

Capello and co-workers have also proposed a comprehensive framework for the environmental assessment of solvents (both single and mixture) [27]. The tool combines EHS analysis of potential solvent hazards with LCA results for environmental impact in a simple three-step procedure. First, a solvent is scored using the EHS method for nine effect categories. These include the potential for release, acute toxicity, chronic toxicity, fire/explosion and reaction/decomposition, persistency, and air and water hazard. The second step involves application of LCA, as described above using the software tool Ecosolvent to calculate the impact scores for the solvent. Finally, the two assessment scores are combined and used to rate the solvents. 

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