Solvents In Terms of Life-Cycle Analysis

The extraction of raw materials, manufacturing processes, use/reuse, and disposal represent the basic stages of a solvent s life cycle. Each stage of a solvent s life cycle generates a variety of environmental burdens. Environmental-impact evaluation qualitatively assesses the life-cycle stages for chemical solvents. The goal of this evaluation is to select environmentally preferable solvents that can best minimize these life-cycle impacts. 

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is part of a special section on the trends and challenges of the new environmental landscape. Another area seen as a priority is that of exposure estimations and the elucidation of the biological mechanisms of chemicals. Pollution prevention, which aims to deal with problems before they occur, is clearly becoming a salient approach to industrial ecology (Environmental Science Technology, 1996 Anastas and Lankey, 2000). 

The benefits of using economy input-output life-cycle analysis (EIO-LCA) to estimate economy-wide discharges are significant. LCA is a systematic tool that is used to provide information on the consequences of alternative products and processes, thereby facilitating effective environmental decision-making. This is generally achieved 

Process and product models are commonly used for performing LCAs of the environmental impacts of materials and products through different stages of fabrication, use, and end-of-life options. In a recent article, it was shown that these models can be represented as process flow diagrams or as matrices of process interactions. Matrix representations are advantageous if application cost, feedback flow, or speed of analysis is important. They are also useful in conjunction with comprehensive, general equilibrium models in which the system boundary of the problem (e.g., an LCA of a product) being analyzed is on the level of the national economy (Hendrickson et al., 1998). Rich communities bear a responsibility to pioneer a path toward sustainable consumption (Myers, 1997). 

Authors have stressed the importance of LCAs for comparing environmental and energy impacts, outlined the difficulties encountered in conducting such assessments, and provided examples of past LCAs. They addressed additional issues and also examined the usefulness of LCAs in formulating public policy. When a given pollutant arises at multiple sites, life-cycle impact analysis is often replaced by life-cycle inventory analysis (Graedel et al., 1995). 

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