Life Cycle Assessment of Cross Linked Polyethylene Piping

Toxicity Implications of Use Phase Leaching

Out With the Old: Copper Piping What Are We Bringing With Us: Life Cycle Assessment Life Cycle Toxicity Assessment
And then, there's
USEtox Modelling Structure First Order Decay
copper, which is the Durable. 100 Functional Unit 7

Relative Impacts (%)

Proven and Predictable. C0=5.85 mg/L
only pipe I use. It costs 80 6
Trusted by contractors and k=0.024

TOC, mg/L
money. It costs money Amount of pipe needed in a single household 5 +
60
because it saves homeowners. (Lee & Easterling 2012) = # ' =
4
money. 40
Pressure supply and transport of hot and cold 3
20 drinking water (Spirinckx et al. 2011) 2
0 1
ADP ACD EUP GWP ODP POP Equivalent length of pipe (Franklin Associates
0
Moonstruck (1987) 2008).
Source: Solvay Copper Pex 0 10 20 30
Age, Days
Rising price of copper.
Complex piping networks. Exposure Pathways USEtox Human Effect Factors
Rigid joints & soldering. No Studies Including Use Phase Water Quality Impacts!! Inhalation Ingestion
Difficult to retrofit. Image: themarreport.com ETBE
T-butyl alcohol
Select Contaminants in Water Exposed to PEX Pipes
Methanol
In With the New: Cross Linked Polyethylene - PEX Contaminant CAS-RN
0.6
MTBE
2-ethylhexanal 123-05-7 Day 3 Day 15 Day 30
0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 1

Chlorine Demand, mg/L

New polymeric materials have drastically altered the pipe industry, cross- 2-ethyl-1-hexanol 104-76-7
2,2,5,5-tetramethyl-tetrahydrofuran 15045-43-9 Oral Toxicity, cases/kg ingested
linked polyethylene (PEX) and chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC). 0.4
Image: itacontario Image: fimfiction
2-nonanone 821-55-6
1-octanol 111-87-5
Piping Material Used in Residential
Homes, New Con. 2013 5-methyl-2-hexanone 110-12-3 Toxicity Implications of Use Phase Leaching
0.2
pyridine 110-86-1
toluene 108-88-3 1E-4
Copper 1,1,1,2-tetrachloroethane 630-20-6

Human Toxicity, CTU

15% 0.0
trichloroacetic acid 76-03-9 a1 a2 b1 b2 b3 c1
CPVC bis(2-ethylhexyl)adipate 103-23-1 1E-5
PEX Pipe Type and Brand
15% PEX ethyl-tert-butyl-ether (ETBE) 637-92-3

70% 1E-6

Image: cn-jxgy.com Without Chlorine With Chlorine

1E-7
Source: Uponor Day 3 Day 15 Day 30 Day 3 Day 15 Day 30 PP a1 a2 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 c1 Mfg
8 8

Organic Carbon, mg/L

Organic Carbon, mg/L

7 7 PEX
PEX Cross Linking Methods 6
5
6
5 Comparison between (worst-case) mfg and Potential human toxicity of leached chemicals
A: Hot Crosslinking - Adding peroxide then applying high temperature and 4 4 (best-case, ETBE only) use-phase toxicity for exceeds production impacts by 5-100x under
pressure to the polyethylene mix within a special extruder. 3 3 10-ft sections for each plastic pipe material the most conservative scenario
2 2
B: Moisture Cure - Grafting a reactive silane molecule to the polyethylene 1 1
resin and blended with catalyst. 0 0
C: Cold Crosslinking - High-energy radiation to split carbon-hydrogen bonds. a1 a2 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 c1 a1 a2 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 c1 What Weve Learned
PP PEX PP PEX
PEX-B 1. Water quality impacts caused by plastic pipe varies between PEX type and
PEX-A
PEX brand, but in all cases exceeded manufacturing toxicity. So, get
informed and choose carefully.
120 120
USEPA SMCL 3 TON USEPA SMCL 3 TON
2. Inventory methods. High initial leaching rates, which can be estimated using
100 100 first order decay methods. New CA policy requiring installers to flush out
system twice. Homeowners should also flush when returning after several
Odor, TON

Odor, TON

80 80
60 60 days, and should know flushing time of system.
40 40 3. System boundary. Inclusion of use-phase leaching is critical for LCAs of
water systems (and other products). This work clearly shows that more efforts
20 20
PEX-C are needed to integrate water quality concerns.
0 0
a1 a2 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 c1 a1 a2 b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 c1
PP PEX PP PEX Acknowledgments
Data Collection: Keven Kelley, Matt Connell, University of South Alabama
Preliminary LCA Modeling: Pu Yue, Jiahao Hu, Northeastern University

Robert Phillips Dr. Matt Eckelman Dr. Andrew Whelton Dr. Alexandra Stenson National Science Foundation
phillips.ro@husky.neu.edu m.eckelman@neu.edu Purdue University University of South Alabama Award CBET-1522957