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Industrial Ecology: Environmental Chemistry and Hazardous Waste

Posted on: Sunday, 26 March 2006, 03:03 CST

By Qureshi, Tahir Imran

Industrial Ecology: Environmental Chemistry and Hazardous Waste Stanley E. Manahan (1999). CRC Press LLC, 2000 Corporate Blvd. N.W., Boca Raton, FL 33431, 318 pp., $94.95, hardcover, ISBN 1-56670-381- 6.

This book focuses on industrial ecology for efficient material use and minimum waste generation. The author discusses the characterization of hazardous wastes, their chemistry, and different waste treatment and management alternatives.

The first chapter describes the anthrosphere (the part of the environment made or modified by humans) as the fifth element of the environmental sphere, as well as the hazards caused by anthrospheric activities. The author covers industrial ecology in pollution prevention applications and the characteristics of industrial metabolism, and presents a comparative review of industrial and natural biological metabolism.

The book continues with different components of the industrial ecosystem, its application in different industrial units, and the implementation steps required to establish an industrial ecology system. The author includes life-cycle assessment aspects of a product, process, and facility and different factors pertaining to their design for environment to make them environmentally friendly. He also discusses how an industrial ecology system can remove metal and nonmetal pollutants. One chapter is devoted to the ways in which different areas of environmental chemistry - such as aquatic, land, and atmospheric chemistry - can help in reaching the ultimate goals of an industrial ecology system.

Special attention is given to hazardous materials and their physical and chemical characteristics, waste management alternatives, and the fate of toxic substances in different spheres of the environment. The toxic nature of hazardous inorganic and organic materials, as well as their interaction and state of occurrence in different environmental conditions, is discussed. The author also covers the toxicological chemistry of toxins and biohazard materials, which are produced by biological processes and in biomedical facilities.

The book closes with an exploration of alternative waste reduction and waste treatment programs. Source reduction strategies, physicochemical techniques of waste minimization, and safe disposal of waste materials by solidification-stabilization, chemical fixation, and landfilling are discussed.

This book will serve as a reference and textbook for those in the pollution prevention, hazardous waste management, toxicology, and environmental chemistry fields.

Tahir Imran Qureshi is a research associate in the Department of Environmental Engineering at Kyungpook National University (Daegu, South Korea).

Copyright Water Environment Federation Mar 2006

Source: Water Environment & Technology

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