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FINDING SOLVENT REPLACEMENTS TO REDUCE THE POTENTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF INDUSTRIAL WASTES
Citation:
HARTEN, P. F. FINDING SOLVENT REPLACEMENTS TO REDUCE THE POTENTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF INDUSTRIAL WASTES. Presented at CAPEC Annual Meeting, Copenhagen, DENMARK, June 06 - 09, 2005.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has developed a solvent substitution software tool PARIS II (Program for Assisting the Replacement of Industrial Solvents, version 2.0). The purpose of this tool is to find less toxic solvents or solvent mixtures which may functionally replace more toxic solvents commonly used by industry. The performance of solvent mixtures may be quantified by a number of coefficients representing various physical and chemical properties (e.g., viscosity, thermal conductivity, activity, etc.). Likewise, the environmental toxicity of solvent mixtures may be quantified by values taken from several different categories of environmental impact (e.g. aquatic toxicity, terrestrial toxicity, acid rain, ozone depletion, etc.). The replacement process is realized by first identifying a toxic industrial solvent or solvent mixture to be replaced, calculating its physical and chemical property coefficients, and calculating its total potential environmental impact. Then, the same property coefficients and total potential environmental impact of various solvent mixtures are calculated. A ranked list of solvent mixtures which minimize the difference of coefficients with the original solvent yet reduce the total potential environmental impact are considered as replacements. The capabilities of PARIS have been extended by interfacing with CAPEC ProPred software. Calling ProPred from inside PARIS, the user will be able build their own database of private solvents. These private solvents may then be included in the PARIS search for less toxic solvent mixtures to replace harmful industrial solvents. Conversely, using the PARIS search, the user may find less toxic replacements for their private solvents used in industrial processes.