(790d) Cradle-to-Gate Life-Cycle Assessment of Ionic Liquids

Ionic liquids (ILs) are new class of “green” chemicals that are being developed as a replacement for volatile organic solvents for a range of industrial applications. The inherent greenness of ILs is often associated with negligible vapor pressures that they possess. Although, ILs lessens the risk of air pollution due to their insignificant vapor pressure, many are highly soluble in water and can become persistent pollutants. Existing studies show that certain ionic liquids have negative environmental and ecosystem impacts while others do not. Current strategies for designing novel ionic liquids tend to focus on tailoring their structures with an aim to impart specific functionalities (e.g. high CO2 solubility for carbon capture applications). However -in line with the assumption that all ionic liquids are green- they either do not consider the environmental and health impacts during the design or consider them after the fact. In this work, we present systems analysis view of certain ionic liquids and compare them with common organic solvents from a cradle-to gate life-cycle assessment (LCA) perspective. We will focus on the environment, ecosystem and health impacts associated with the production of different ionic liquids.