Solvents environmental protection

Shallow innovation can appear to be an attractive strategy. Particularly where a specific ingredient is a cause for concern, finding a substitute looks like the quickest and most cost-effective solution. Organisations like the Environmental Protection Agency in the US have collated tables of known substitutes for materials where the environmental or health and safety profile have caused concern. This approach is particularly used for solvents, and has been quite effective. ... 

Analytical methods for parent chloroacetanilide herbicides in soil typically involve extraction of the soil with solvent, followed by solid-phase extraction (SPE), and analysis by gas chromatography/electron capture detection (GC/ECD) or gas chromatog-raphy/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Analytical methods for parent chloroacetanilides in water are similarly based on extraction followed by GC with various detection techniques. Many of the water methods, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official methods, are multi-residue methods that include other compound classes in addition to chloroacetanilides. While liquid-liquid partitioning was used initially to extract acetanilides from water samples, SPE using... 

SFE instrument development has greatly been stimulated by the desire of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to replace many of their traditional liquid-solvent extraction methods by SFE with carbon dioxide. In the regulatory environment, EPA and FDA approved SFE and SFC applications are now becoming available. Yet, further development requires interlaboratory validation of methods. Several reviews describe analytical SFE applied to polymer additives [89,92,324]. 

Water for injection (WFI) is the most widely used solvent for parenteral preparations. The USP requirements for WFI and purified water have been recently updated to replace the traditional wet and colorimetric analytical methods with the more modern and cost-effective methods of conductivity and total organic carbon. Water for injection must be prepared and stored in a manner to ensure purity and freedom from pyrogens. The most common means of obtaining WFI is by the distillation of deionized water. This is the only method of preparation permitted by the European Pharmacopoeia (EP). In contrast, the USP and the Japanese Pharmacopeias also permit reverse osmosis to be used. The USP has also recently broadened its definition of source water to include not only the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Primary Drinking Water Standards, but also comparable regulations of the European Union or Japan. 

U.S. EPA, In Situ Thermal Treatment of Chlorinated Solvents Fundamentals and Field Applications, EPA 542-R-03-012, Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, July 2003. 

If arrangements for incineration of waste solvent and disposal of solid chemical waste by licensed contract disposal services are nol in place, a list of providers of such services should be available from a state or local office of environmental protection. 

BCD [Base-Catalyzed Decomposition] A process for decomposing hazardous organochlorine compounds by treating them in oil at 300 to 350°C with sucrose and a high-boiling solvent. Developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1991. 

This article considers the rapid market growth worldwide of ethyl acetate, which is used increasingly as a replacement for methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) in solvents. It reports that this growth is especially apparent in the USA where MEK has been defined as a hazardous air pollutant by the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Commonly used methods for the determination of petroleum hydrocarbon contamination in soil are modifications of Environmental Protection Agency method 418.1, which use sonication or a Soxhlet apparatus for analyte extraction and either infrared spectrometry [5] or gas chromatography with flame ionization detection [6-7] for extract analysis. Regardless of the analytical method following the extraction, both modifications use Freon-113, which has been implicated as a cause of ozone depletion. Therefore, alternative methods are being sought for the determination of hydrocarbon contamination in environmental samples that reduce the need for this halogenated solvent. 

Askari et al. [15] have compared purge and trap, methanol immersion and hot solvent extraction methods for the determination of volatile organic compound in aged soil. These workers found that hot solvent extraction is much more effective than the US Environmental Protection Agency approved purge and trap technique [7, 8]. 

Materials. Aldicarb standards were obtained from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), Quality Assurance Section and from Union Carbide Corporation. Crystalline samples of carbofuran and 3-hydroxycarbofuran were supplied by the Agricultural Chemical Group of FMC Corporation. Reference standards of methomyl (99% pure) and oxamyl (99% pure) were obtained from USEPA. HPLC grade methanol was purchased from Burdick and Jackson, Inc. Methylene chloride used for bulk extractions of the carbamate pesticides in solution was recovered, distilled and reused. Analytical reagent grade chemicals and solvents were used in all experiments. Doubly distilled deionized water was used for solution rate studies. Deionized distilled water (DDW) was used for dilutions in reactive ion exchange experim ts., , ... 

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