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Green Chemistry in Action

The best way to understand the potential of Green Chemistry is to see it in action. Each year, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sponsors The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards with help from the ACS Green Chemistry Institute®. The following award-winning innovations are brilliant examples of how effective application of the Principles of Green Chemistry by researchers, small businesses and large corporations is beginning to solve our environmental challenges.

• Professor Krzysztof Matyjaszewski develops safer solvents and substances.
  Hazardous chemicals are often required in the manufacture of important polymers such as lubricants, adhesives, and coatings. Professor Matyjaszewski from Carnegie Mellon University developed an alternative process called "Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP)" for manufacturing polymers. The process uses chemicals that are environmentally friendly, such as ascorbic acid (vitamin C) as a reducing agent, and requires less catalyst.
• Procter & Gamble and Cook Composites and Polymers develop renewable paints.
  Conventional oil-based "alkyd" paints provide durable, high-gloss coatings and are in demand for high volume applications including architectural finishes, industrial metal, and equipment for agriculture and construction, but use hazardous solvents. Procter & Gamble and Cook Composites and Polymers are developing innovative Chempol® MPS paint formulations using biobased Sefose® oils to replace petroleum-based solvents. Sefose® oils, made from sugar and vegetable oil, enable new high-performance alkyd paints with less than half the solvent.
• Virent Energy Systems, Inc. uses renewable feedstocks to create fuel. Virent's BioForming® process is a water-based, catalytic method to make gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel from the sugar, starch, or cellulose of plants that requires little external energy other than the plant biomass. The process is flexible and can be modified to generate different competitively priced fuels based market needs.
• Eastman Chemical Company greens syntheses and saves energy. Esters are an important class of ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products. Usually, they are manufactured by harsh chemical methods that use strong acids and potentially hazardous solvents; these methods also require a great deal of energy. Eastman’s new method uses immobilized enzymes to make esters, saving energy and avoiding both strong acids and organic solvents. This method is so gentle that Eastman can use delicate, natural raw materials to make esters never before available.
• Battelle creates toner from renewable materials and improves recyclability. Laser printers and copiers use over 400 million pounds of toner each year in the United States. Traditional toners fuse so tightly to paper that they are difficult to remove from waste paper for recycling. They are also made from petroleum-based starting materials. Battelle and its partners, Advanced Image Resources and the Ohio Soybean Council, have developed a soy-based toner that performs as well as traditional ones, but is much easier to remove. The new toner technology can save significant amounts of energy and allow more paper fiber to be recycled.
• Nalco creates real-time monitoring technology that reduces waste. Cooling water touches many facets of human life, including cooling for comfort in commercial buildings and cooling industrial processes. Cooling systems require added chemicals to control microbial growth, mineral deposits, and corrosion. Nalco developed 3D TRASAR® technology to continuously monitor the condition of cooling water and add appropriate chemicals only when needed, rather than on a fixed schedule. The technique saves water and energy, minimizes the use of water-treatment chemicals, and decreases environmental damage from discharged water.
• Professor Li develops safer, more environmentally friendly adhesive. Adhesives used in manufacturing plywood and other wood composites often contain formaldehyde, which is toxic. Professor Kaichang Li of Oregon State University, Columbia Forest Products, and Hercules Incorporated developed an alternate adhesive made from soy flour. Their environmentally friendly adhesive is stronger than and cost-competitive with conventional adhesives. During 2006, Columbia used the new, soy-based adhesive to replace more than 47 million pounds of conventional formaldehyde-based adhesives.
• S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. makes their manufacturing processes greener. In 2006, SC Johnson developed Greenlist™, a system that rates the environmental and health effects of the ingredients in its products. SC Johnson is now using Greenlist™ to reformulate many of its products. For example, they eliminated the use of nearly 4 million pounds of polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) annually after its "Greenlist" review of Saran Wrap® revealed opportunities for changes.
• Codexis makes Lipitor with less energy, less waste and improved safety. Codexis developed cutting-edge genetic methods to create “designer enzymes”. These methods produce enzymes that greatly improve the manufacture of the key building block for Lipitor®, one of the world’s best-selling drugs. The new enzymatic process reduces waste, uses less solvent, and requires less processing equipment. The process also increases yield and improves worker safety.
• BASF Corporation improves their processes, creating a greener primer. BASF developed a new automobile paint primer that contains less than half the amount of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) used in conventional primers. The new primer is also free of diisocyanates, a major source of occupational asthma. Use in repair facilities has shown that only one-third as much of this primer is needed compared to conventional primer and that waste is reduced from 20 percent to nearly zero.
• Dow Chemical Company reuses waste gases to green their processes. Dow developed a process for manufacturing polystyrene foam sheets that uses carbon dioxide (CO2) as a blowing agent, eliminating 3.5 million pounds per year of traditional blowing agents. Traditional blowing agents deplete the ozone layer or contribute to ground-level smog. In addition, Dow will obtain CO2 only from existing commercial and natural sources that generate it as a byproduct, so this process will not contribute to global CO2 levels.

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