ECOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISK ASSESSMENT IN THE NANOMATERIALS PRODUCTION

In this study, the spray pyrolysis and hydrothermal production processes of nanostructured zinc oxide were compared in terms of health and environmental risk on a semi-industrial scale with a capacity of 2000 kg/year. For this, environmental release and human exposure to identified sources of pollution in each production process were modeled using the Chemical Screening Tool for Exposure and Environmental Release (ChemSTEER) software. Spray pyrolysis and hydrothermal were compared pair-wisely by analytic hierarchy process (AHP), which is a multi-criteria decision-making model using health and environmental indicators. According to AHP results and box plot chart, hydrothermal process leads to a higher health and environmental median inverse risk compared with spray pyrolysis. Thus the synthesis of nanostructured zinc oxide by hydrothermal process is safer than spray pyrolysis. Due to the growing development of the various methods of the nanomaterials, we need to apply the safer methods and to have the least ecological risks in the production of the nanomaterials. These findings could be helpful for modifying the operation and reducing the ecological potential risks to scale up the existing pilot plant to an industrial unit.