ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS OF FLUORINATED MATERIALS - PART 3 - COMPARATIVELIFE-CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACTS ASSOCIATED WITH FIRE EXTINGUISHANTS HFC-227EA AND IG-541

Fluorinated materials developed to replace materials banned from manuf acture under the Montreal Protocol are themselves contributors to envi ronment damage. In particular, their contribution go global warming is under scrutiny from customers, regulators and pressure groups. This p aper provides a comparison of the global warming and other impacts ass ociated with two possible replacements for Halon 1301 (a banned fire e xtinguishant), namely an 'in-kind' compound CF3CHFCF3 (HFC-227ea) and a 'not-in-kind' blend of nitrogen, argon and carbon dioxide (IG-541). The impacts associated with the manufacture and deployment of the HFC- 227ea are found to be substantially greater than those of the inert ga s mixture designed for the same fire-extinguishing duty. The impacts d uring manufacture reveal an important issue for the widely used measur e of global warming impact-the so-called Total Equivalent Warming Impa ct (TEWI). The present work clearly reveals that where impacts associa ted with manufacture are significant, the scope of the TEWI analysis n eeds to cover the manufacturing process if it is to be meaningful.