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Sustainable Surfactants Renewable Feedstocks for the 21st Century - Environmental benefits of vegetable-oil based surfactants |
Environmental benefits of vegetable-oil based surfactants
Dr S P Carruthers, Centre for Agricultural Strategy, Reading, UK
Surfactants impact the environment not only in their use and disposal, but also in their production and delivery. This paper reports on research by the Centre for Agricultural Strategy (CAS) and SAC Aberdeen (SAC) to investigate this effect. The research was part of a wider MAFF-funded study to compare the environmental and socio-economic impacts of rapeseed-oil-based industrial products with comparable products derived from mineral oil. This used a combination of life-cycle assessment (LCA) and cost-benefit analysis (CBA), applied to several case-study products. The surfactant analysis focused on alcohol ethoxylate with an average of seven ethylene oxide units (AE7) derived from petrochemical feedstocks, and from coconut, palm kernel and rapeseed oils. The analysis drew on the European Life-Cycle Inventory for Detergent Surfactants Production (eg Tenside Surf. Det. 32 (1995) 2), developing it in two ways: by examining manufacture based on UK-produced rapeseed oil; and by extending the analysis to include impact assessment and economic valuation.
In terms of environmental impacts, the general indications were that oleochemical-based AE7 used fewer natural resources than the petrochemical equivalent and presented lower environmental impacts arising from air emissions, but higher impacts from water and soil emissions. Rapeseed-oil impacts were, in many cases, higher than coconut and palm-kernel oils, although the data sets may not be strictly comparable. Four valuation systems were employed, from different sources and based on different criteria. These valued the environmental costs per 1000 kg of AE7 from rapeseed oil (assuming a crop yield of 3.3 t/ha and 70% allocation of burdens to rapeseed oil) at £256 to 565, from petrochemical feedstocks at £292 to 697, from coconut oil at £225 to 457 and from palm kernel oil at £267 to 489. These results reflect both the magnitude and differences in environmental impacts, and their inclusion and absolute and relative costs under the different valuation systems.
The study's findings point: to the environmental advantages of oleochemical over petrochemical feedstocks, a conclusion that is likely to hold for many other surfactants,; and, by implication, to the potential for replacing mineral oils with rapeseed oil in the manufacture of industrial products. The study also draws attention to the potential of the methodology, and to its shortcomings. By revealing costs and benefits to society that are not reflected in market prices, such analyses can assist governments and commercial firms in policy formulation, product development etc. Further research is needed, however, to 'plug gaps' in data and to address various methodological questions.
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