Reducing Environmental Impact

Degradation or Transformation. Degradation or transformation of a herbicide by soil microbes or by abiotic means has a significant influence not only on the herbicide s fate in the environment but also on the compound s efficacy. Herbicides that are readily degraded by soil microbes or other means may have a reduced environmental impact but may not be efficacious. Consider the phenomenon of herbicide-resistant soils. In these cases, repeated application of a given herbicide has led to a microbial population with an enhanced ability to degrade that herbicide (252,253). This results in a decrease or total loss of the ability of the herbicide to control the weed species in question in a cost-effective manner. 

Reactive groups have minimal auxochrome effect on color intensity, and color yield per molecular weight decreases with increasing numbers of reactive groups. Increased dye fixation and reduced environmental impact of hydrolyzed dye more than compensate for color reduction of additional reactive groups. 

Over the past decades, advances have been made that reduce environmental impacts of coal burning in large plants. Some arc standard and others experimental. Limestone (mainly calcium carbonate) scrubber smokestacks react with the emitted sulfates from the combustion and contain the chemical products, thereby reducing the release of SO., into the atmosphere by a large factor (of ten or more). Pulverization of coal can also allow for the mechanical separation of some sulfur impurities, notably those in the form of pyrites, prior to combustion. Currently deployed—with more advanced versions in the development stage—are various t yies of fluidized bed reactors, which use coal fuel in a pulverized form, mixed with pulverized limestone or dolomite in a high temperature furnace. This technique reduces sulfate release considerably. There are... 

The energ /transport relationship is complex and resists easy generalization. Against this backdrop, what useful conclusions can he drawn about the role of passenger rail services in saving energy or reducing environmental impacts from transport ... 

Applying the techniques that have worked so well in commodity chemicals to the higher value sectors will reduce environmental impact and improve the economics, but the gains wiU be smaller. In particular, the economic benefits may not justify the investment in improvement. Further reduction in environmental footprint will require a new way of looking at the problem. 

Green product design is about reviewing the entire life-cycle of a product or service from sourcing all the raw materials needed, to ultimate disposal at the end of life. Looking for opportimities to improve performance, reduce costs and reduce environmental impact. 

A common assumption is that reduced environmental impact must be paid for by higher prices or lower profit margins. This is a dangerous assumption because it reinforces the idea that environmental issues are a problem and cost. With good design you can achieve reduced impact and higher value at the same time. 

Design strategies for raw material intensive products. Ideas for reducing environmental impact when the current solution is raw material intensive ... 

Are alternative processes available that would further reduce environmental impact on a technical and economic basis Identify potential opportunities. Identify the risk category. 

The firm is usually the party responsible for mitigation of environmental impacts and for taking the costs associated with mitigation. Whether or not these costs are transferred to the final customer is a topic for another book, but we will stick to explaining the abatement costs that the seller endures when reducing environmental impacts. 

There are other relevant options which can be of concern when reducing environmental impacts. Examples of those are technology substitution, shifts in production, and also adaptation costs. 

The modeling and optimisation of concentrate discharge to reduce environmental impacts has been the focus of numerous studies (Al-Barwani and Pumama 2007, 2008 Alameddine and El-Fadel 2007 Bleninger and Jirka 2008 Malcangio and Petrillo 2010 Pumama and Al-Barwani 2004 Pumama et al. 2003). Much of this research has been for a project by the Middle Eastern Desalination Research Center, Environmental Planning, Prediction and Management of Brine Discharges from Desalination Plants. 

Compared with the volume of concentrate, the volume of cleaning solution is relatively small. To reduce environmental impacts, as well as costs associated with cleaning, the quantity of chemicals that are used can be reduced through an effective pre-treatment process. 

Paskall (25) has recently reviewed the various modifications to the Claus process that result in optimum sulfur recovery efficiency. Overall plant conversion efficiencies in the range of 97% were considered to be the upper limit at the beginning of the 1970 s (26). While this is a very respectable conversion efficiency for an industrial process the unrecovered 3% in a 2,000 tonne/d sulfur plant represents 60 tonnes/d of sulfur lost, mainly to atmosphere as 120 tonnes/d of SO2. Modifications to the four stage Claus converter train however, can raise overall conversions to over 98.5% thus halving the sulfur loss to the plant tail gas. This either reduces environmental impact or the load on tail gas desulfurization units that will be discussed later. 

Dematerialization. By scale, the reduction of material and energy intensity by process intensification should reduce environmental impact. 

Thus, among the practical challenges to be met for successful introduction of antifouling solutions with reduced environmental impact is to find ways to promote industry-academic... 

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