Evaluating the environmental impacts of analytical chemistry methods: From a critical review towards a proposal using a life cycle approach

In the past twenty years, analytical chemistry scientists have developed tools to assess the greenness of their analytical methods. The purpose of this work is to review these tools against criteria inspired by the life cycle assessment (LCA) framework. Results show that the reviewed tools are ready-and easy-to use but they are also limited in their scope, and base their rankings on subjective weighting scheme. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of LCA to overcome the limits found in the reviewed tools. We show that LCA is complementary to existing tools as it provides quantitative and holistic information on the environmental performance of analytical chemistry methods. However, conducting LCA is time consuming, requires expertise and cannot be applied routinely. We finally establish key challenges for the application of LCA in the field of analytical chemistry. (c) 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Over the past twenty years, analytical chemistry scientists have developed tools to evaluate the environmental impact of their methods. This study reviews these tools using criteria inspired by the life cycle assessment framework. The results demonstrate that the reviewed tools are user-friendly but have limitations in scope and rely on subjective weighting schemes. The study discusses the strengths and weaknesses of life cycle assessment as a complementary approach and illustrates its ability to provide quantitative and comprehensive information on the environmental performance of analytical chemistry methods. However, implementing life cycle assessment is time-consuming, requires expertise, and is not suitable for routine application. The study concludes by identifying key challenges for the application of life cycle assessment in the field of analytical chemistry.