News – full story
Awards recognise efforts to safeguard health, the environment
12/12/2013
Presidential Green Chemistry winners unveiled
Chemical engineer Richard Wool among award winners
Adam Duckett
PROCESSES that produce less waste and displace fossil fuel feedstocks are among the winners of this year’s US Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards.
Awarded annually by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the awards recognise researchers and companies that contribute to the use of chemicals and products that are safer for people’s health and the environment.
The awards are given in five categories, including academic, small business, greener synthetic pathways, greener reaction conditions, and designing greener chemicals.
Chemical engineering professor Richard Wool at the University of Delaware, US, won the academic award for developing new bio-based materials to displace toxic substances used to produce materials like adhesives, composites, and circuit boards.
Among his projects, Wool has synthesised a number of soy-based oils that can be used as less harmful feedstocks for resins used in the manufacture of composites. Traditionally, resins are produced from fossil fuel feedstocks and can be toxic before they are cured so are hazardous to workers during manufacture.
The Greener Synthetic Pathways Award was given to Life Technologies Corporation for the development of a more efficient route for producing chemicals key to genetic testing. The polymerase chain reaction process used for the likes of genetic engineering, food safety checks, and forensics requires the use of large volumes of hazardous solvents and reagents. Life Technologies has developed a three-step, one-pot synthesis that prevents the production of 680 t/y of hazardous waste.
Dow Chemical picked up the Designing Greener Chemicals award for improving TiO2-based paints. The company’s Evoque technology uses a polymer coating that improves dispersion of the TiO2 pigment, decreasing the volume of chemical needed and reducing energy use, water consumption, and NOx and SOx emissions.
Cargill won the Greener Synthetic Pathways award for developing a vegetable oil-based transformer fluid that is less flammable, and less toxic than conventional fluids produced from mineral oil.
Finally, the Small Business Award was given to Faraday Technology for developing a plating process that produces chrome coatings from less toxic trivalent chrome. This can reduce the need for hexavalent chrome, a staple for coating the likes of aircraft parts.
“EPA is recognising groundbreaking scientific solutions to real-world environmental problems that improve the bottom line for America’s manufacturing sector,” says Jim Jones, EPA assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution. “These revolutionary technologies have great potential to make consumer products from adhesives to paints safer for us to use, as well as safer and less costly to manufacture by reducing hazardous wastes, energy, and water wastes.”
The EPA estimates that winners over the course of the Green Chemistry Awards’ 18-year history have been responsible for reducing the use or generation of more than 375,000 t of hazardous chemicals, saving 79bn l of water, and eliminating emissions equivalent to 3.5m t of CO2.
