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An end-of-life data engineering framework supporting a safer chemical circular economy
Citation:
Hernandez-Betancur, J., M. Martin, AND Gerardo J. Ruiz-Mercado. An end-of-life data engineering framework supporting a safer chemical circular economy. 25th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference, N/A, N/A, June 14 - 18, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
Risk evaluation aids in determining if a chemical substance in the U.S. market may pose an unreasonable risk of harming the environment or human health across its life cycle stages. Also, the presence of chemicals causing potential adverse human health and environmental effects during end-of-life (EoL) stages is a challenge for implementing sustainable materials management (SMM) efforts and a safer transition towards a circular economy of chemicals. This conference abstract and presentation describe a data engineering framework that connects the EoL stage (e.g., recycling and recovery facilities) and recycled material flows at upstream chemical life cycle stages (e.g., manufacturing) using publicly available information. The approach aims at finding potential SMM scenarios for recycled chemicals. This framework reduces the need for extensive stakeholder input and hands-on knowledge when conducting generic risk evaluations of existing high priority chemicals to determine their unreasonable risk of harming the environment or human health during EoL and post-recycling activities. Moreover, this contribution describes the estimation of material flows for further near-field and occupational exposure assessment models, including EoL performance indicators and release estimations. The TRI Program, the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), the Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM), and the general public can use the novel framework to identify potential exposure scenarios, material flows, and unintended recycling of toxic substances at post-recycling activities (SMM loops).
Description:
Hazardous chemical constituents in end-of-life (EoL) material flows can hinder the implementation of sustainable management efforts and the transition towards a safer circular economy. Chemical risk evaluation can help understand the human health and environmental risks associated with EoL management scenarios and identify potential sustainable circular economy paths. Nevertheless, tracking chemical flows across existing and new circular economy paths is the first step for performing a risk assessment. This presentation describes a data engineering framework to perform chemical flow analysis and support the design and development of a sustainable circular economy of chemicals. The framework uses publicly available information to find potential post-recycling and exposure scenarios (e.g., industrial processing/use operations) and inter-industry chemical transfers. A case study based on n-hexane shows how the framework determines the interconnectivity between industry sectors that constitute an EoL material management chain (e.g., recycling and recovery facilities). Moreover, the framework can identify the industry sectors at upstream chemical life cycle stages (e.g., manufacturing) and estimate ranges of values for the material flow transfers from post-recycling facilities.