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Fuel cell gets energy from water.

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

Aug 09, 2010

Dreizler, AM, and E Roduner.  2010.  A fuel cell that runs on water and air. Energy and Environmental Science 3:761-764.
Synopsis by Evan Beach and Wendy Hessler
2010-0723hyrogenfuelcell
Flickr/eston

Chemists in Germany have figured out a way to extract energy from just water and oxygen. The discovery uses existing fuel cell technology and minimal additional chemicals, providing a safer way to generate electricity for low-power applications.

Context

Concern about the impacts of petroleum as the world’s major energy source has driven research into alternative energy sources, such as solar radiation, wind and biomass.

One of the tools for converting these sustainable energy sources into usable forms of electricity is the fuel cell. Fuel cells are devices that use chemical reactions to change energy from one form to another.

Because of their efficiency and their ability to harvest energy from diverse sources, fuel cells show promise as one of the keys to sustainable power generation.  Fuel cell technology has already matured to the point where it can be used in power plants to supply electricity to buildings, and portable fuel cells have been demonstrated in prototype cars as well as military vehicles.  Smaller fuel cells can be used in place of batteries for electronic devices like radios or laptop computers.

A fuel cell has an anode and a cathode, just like the positive and negative terminals of a battery. Chemical reactions occur at the two electrodes.

Generally, conventional fuel cells get power from a carrier molecule – usually hydrogen – that is added to the device. The fuel cell harvests electrons from the carrier molecule, producing electrical current.  When hydrogen is used in fuel cells, it combines with oxygen in air to make water as a byproduct, also releasing heat.  Fuel cells generally do not require wind or sun and operate quietly.

Tens of thousands of scientific studies have focused on fuel cell technology in attempts to find the chemical fuels and components that produce the greatest energy efficiency. While many varieties of fuel cells have been demonstrated, one thing they have in common is that they depend on energy that was previously generated – in effect they are just tools for converting one form of energy into another. A fuel cell that consumes hydrogen generated from natural gas, for example, still depletes fossil resources. In other types of fuel cells, the carrier molecules are toxic, or the byproducts produced are harmful.  Ideally a fuel cell would derive its energy from a renewable source and avoid unsafe chemicals in the process.

To move toward this goal, there is another way to drive the reactions inside a fuel cell. This not-so-common approach is to use entropy. Entropy is a measure of disorder, and nature favors increasing disorder: it is one of the fundamental laws of thermodynamics.

What did they do?

The authors purchased a commercially available fuel cell, the kind that would ordinarily be used to harvest power from methanol, an energy carrier chemical commonly used in fuel cells. They poured water into the anode side of the cell. The cathode side was exposed to a temperature-controlled stream of air.

In the study, the pH of the water was changed by adding sulfuric acid or sodium hydroxide, and the electrical current and voltage were measured with a multimeter.  The pH was adjusted because it affects the rate at which electrons can be harvested by the cell.

What did they find?

The fuel cell was driven by evaporation of water from one end of the cell, “pulling” the chemical reactions forward. This form of entropy powered the cell.

Considering the chemical reactions involved, at one end of the cell, water breaks down to make oxygen, hydrogen ions, and electrons. At the other end of the cell, the oxygen, hydrogen ions and electrons recombine to make water. In other words, the chemical input (water) is the same as the output. The net enthalpy, or heat balance, is zero, because any heat released at one side of the cell would be balanced by an equal absorption of heat at the other side, so release of heat cannot be the driving force for the fuel cell.

However, this fuel cell used two different forms of water: liquid and vapor. Liquid water is fed into the cell and vapor escapes. Vapor is more disordered than liquid, so the entropy increases and the chemical reaction moves forward. The electrons are forced through a circuit in the process, to make electricity.

The researchers found that temperature and pH affected performance. The optimum temperature was 70 degrees celsius (about 160 degree farenheit) and the voltage was highest at pH 11 (about the same pH as household ammonia).

What does it mean?

This paper reports a unique approach in developing fuel cells. It takes advantage of the fact that a chemical reaction can be “downhill” or spontaneous even if no heat is released, as long as there is an increase in entropy.

The fuel cell design reported in this study uses this technique to drive the overall chemical reaction.

Remarkably, the fuel cell setup can be used to generate electricity from water and air, producing just water and oxygen as byproducts. This is extremely attractive compared to hydrogen, methanol or other common fuel cell chemicals that only carry energy that was generated elsewhere. For example, it is possible to derive hydrogen from solar or wind power, but in practice most hydrogen comes from natural gas or oil, and a fuel cell would only be capturing the energy from those non-renewable sources.

In addition, the use of water as the energy source avoids problems of flammability and toxicity. Many existing fuel cell technologies based on liquids have the drawbacks that the fuels, byproducts or sometimes both are very hazardous. For example, methanol fuel cells can produce formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical.  The authors noted that high pH gave better results; in other words the use of a pH-raising additive like sodium hydroxide would be necessary to give optimum performance.  This could be considered a drawback but it might be possible through further research to improve the reaction rate by other means.

Because evaporation of water is critical to the process, the researchers suggested that the technology would be most effective in dry, windy areas.

The main limitation of the water fuel cell is that it needs more space, and materials, to generate the same amount of power as a denser fuel cell.  The researchers suggest that the water fuel cell is perhaps 100 times less dense than would be practical for most applications. The performance, though, is similar to fuel cells that produce electricity from microbial activity. The researchers suggest the cell would be adequate to power sensors or wireless transmitters.

Further research on these fuel cells might compare the amount of energy used to construct the fuel cell and its component parts, including membranes and metal catalysts, to the amount of energy that could be generated in the fuel cell’s expected lifetime.

Resources

Demirci, UB. 2010. How green are the chemicals used as liquid fuels in direct liquid-feed fuel cells? Environment International 35:626-631.

Fuel cell basics. Smithsonian Institute.

Fuel Cell Technology Program. U.S. Department of Energy.

Tollefson, J. 2010. Hydrogen vehicles: Fuel of the Future? Nature 464:1262-1264.
Hydrogen fuel cells

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2 August High hopes in the search for clean-burning hydrogen. As General Motors gets ready to sell its new Chevrolet Volt plug-in car this year, and with Nissan right behind with its all-electric Leaf hatchback, there’s not a lot of talk about hydrogen fuel-cell cars. Toronto Star, Ontario.

28 July US seeks solar flair for fuels. The US Department of Energy has launched an ‘artificial photosynthesis’ initiative with the ambitious goal of developing, scaling up and ultimately commercializing technologies that directly convert sunlight into hydrogen and other fuels. Nature.

18 July The case of the poisoned fuel cell. Hydrogen fuel cells have their own Achilles’ heel: They are easily poisoned by carbon monoxide. Now, researchers report that they’ve created novel catalysts for fuel cell cars that strongly resist carbon monoxide contamination, potentially solving a problem that has vexed the industry for years. Science.

15 July UK firm B9 eyes hydrogen as gas plant alternative. Britain’s B9 Gas is exploring hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative cheap, low-carbon way to generate electricity instead of burning gas, the clean fossil-fuel company said on Wednesday. Reuters.

10 July UK hydrogen cars are coming – if you can fill up. Britain’s hydrogen fuel cell car fleet may hit top gear within five years, but only if there is enough investment in filling stations, the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Association told Reuters on Friday. Reuters.

More news about
Hydrogen fuel cells

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Measuring the growing impact of Green Chemistry scholarly research.

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Advancing Green Chemistry has a long-standing interest in benchmarking the advancement of the field of Green Chemistry;  one particular area in which one can measure change is in scientific publications.

Recently there have been two new assessments of growth in the overall numbers  – and impact factor  – of the scientific publications in Green Chemistry.  As a field of science that is on the rise, this is to be expected; but it is extremely gratifying to see data on such advancements. This is not just hand waving, but statistical evidence of a profound shift in chemistry in favor of Green Chemistry, its processes, and applications.

First is the brief yet stunning news from the Royal Society of Chemistry journal, Green Chemistry. From a blog post by Editor Sarah Ruthven:

Highest Impact Factor for Green Chemistry – 5.84

18 Jul 2010

“Newly released 2009 ISI citation data shows the impact factor for Green Chemistry hits a record high of 5.84, representing a 28.5% growth over the 2008 figure.

This impressive trend underlines the continuing success of Green Chemistry, now in its 12th year of publishing. This news reinforces Green Chemistry’s  position as the leading journal for publishing cutting-edge research of the highest quality in the field of green and sustainable technologies.”

The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more important than those with lower ones.

By way of comparison, the average impact factor for Royal Society chemistry journals in 2008 was 6.042. This means that Green Chemistry has entered mainstream chemistry and can no longer be considered a niche field.

Additionally, the journal Green Chemistry: Letters and Reviews (Taylor and Francis) has just published a review article entitled,

Green Chemistry: state of the art through an analysis of the literature (by V. Dichiarante; D. Ravelli; A. Albini).

The abstract states:

“The literature of green chemistry has undergone a dramatic increase in the new millennium. Besides that, in ad hoc journals, papers of this type are published in journals of general, organic, and catalytic chemistry. The high proportion of communications within this area indicates that this is a hot topic. These reports mainly concern more environment-friendly synthetic methods, based on better catalytic systems, less harmful solvents and, more rarely, “alternative” physical techniques. Although the compliance with the green chemistry postulates is still partial, a trend in this direction is recognizable. For example, the number of preparative papers that introduce an environmental assessment is rapidly increasing.”

Both of these analyses indicate that the science of Green Chemistry  – as measured through scientific publications – is on the rise and a more established dimension of the science of chemistry. This is exciting news.

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A Proactive Approach to Toxic Chemicals: Moving Green Chemistry Beyond Alternatives in the “Safe Chemicals Act of 2010”.

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Kira J. M. Matus*†, Julie B. Zimmerman‡ and Evan Beach

* Corresponding author e-mail: kira.matus@yale.edu.,

On April 15, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced the “Safe Chemicals Act of 2010” in the United States Senate. On the same day, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Bobby Rush (D-IL) released a discussion draft of a similar bill in the House. These bills present an important and much needed modernization to the management and regulation of chemical hazards in the United States.

The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the regulation designed to protect Americans and their environment from chemical hazards, has not had its core provisions significantly amended since its enactment in 1976. However, in recent years, there has been increased pressure on lawmakers to rethink the government’s approach to the hazards that arise during the lifecycle of chemical production and use.

There are several drivers for action on chemicals management legislation including (1) recent concerns on the part of nongovernmental organizations and the public about particular chemical hazards (BPA, phthalates, etc…), (2) strict state level chemical regulations, and (3) the enactment of a comprehensive chemical regulation program by the European Community known as Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances (REACH). Further, in 2009, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson laid out the Obama Administration’s key priorities for TSCA reform (1). This was accompanied by similar proposals from industry and the NGO communities indicating a desire to update TSCA.

Many of the provisions included in the recently proposed legislation, such as shifting the burden of data provision from the EPA to industry, are widely supported. Other elements, such as what data should be provided, how chemicals will be prioritized, the scope of EPA’s authority to take action, and whether it is feasible to “prove” the safety of a chemical have emerged as topics for vigorous debate.

Among the many elements in the current bills, there is one provision, “Green Chemistry”, that has the potential, in the long term, to drastically change the paradigm of the chemical enterprise. Green chemistry, simply defined, is “the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances” (2). Based on 12 Principles (2), Green Chemistry is a systems-based approach for reduced hazard across the entire life cycle of chemicals, from design, manufacture, and use to end of life. It integrates knowledge from across chemistry, engineering, environmental science, and toxicology to reduce, and ideally, eliminate, adverse impacts on human health and the environment.

Both versions of the bill, picking up on Administrator Jackson’s call for green chemistry to be a core element in TSCA reform, explicitly mention the need to “spur innovation in green chemistry”. They address this with a series of proposals under the title of “Safer Alternatives and Green Chemistry and Engineering”. The programs included in this section are laudable. They would provide incentives for the creation of greener, less hazardous alternatives through research funding, expedited review processes, awards, labeling programs, and the creation of four national green chemistry and engineering research centers.

While these provisions are clear signals to the chemical enterprise representing a strong beginning for enhancing green chemistry innovation, there are additional activities and strategies that can and should be advanced. Green chemistry is about more than developing safer alternatives. It is fundamentally a series of guidelines to designing chemicals to reduce, and ideally eliminate, hazard. Green chemistry is a preventive approach based on innovation that improves technical performance, profits, and social benefit. It takes into account long-term, life-cycle thinking.

Green chemistry is at its most powerful as a tool for the development of the next generation of chemical innovations. For new chemicals and materials, it is much more efficient if they are as safe as possible from the outset, eliminating the need to develop alternatives in the future. If the principles of green chemistry were broadly implemented, both in the scientific research community and in industry, they would be a powerful, market-oriented, economically favorable approach to protecting human health and the environment from any potential adverse impacts before they could be manifested.

As discussion of these bills moves forward, stakeholders involved in the process should think more creatively about how the tools of green chemistry can be incorporated throughout the reformed TSCA regulatory process. This means thinking not just about alternatives to chemicals already in commerce, but also about ways to develop and disseminate the knowledge so that new innovations are progressively safer and greener. There are a variety of approaches that should be explored including:

1.  Make use of the power of public reporting, and familiarize firms with including Green Chemistry Principles and accounting in their statements:

a. Grant the EPA the authority to include green chemistry metrics in the data that it can require manufacturers to submit as part of their data sets. This could include information such as E-factor (a measure of the efficiency of production), use or generation of hazardous substances based on those chemicals currently listed, and use of renewable energy or material feedstocks.

b. Have the EPA work with NGOs, academia, and industry to create a template for a green chemistry “scorecard” for chemicals and mixtures. Provide incentives for manufacturers who voluntarily submit green chemistry “scorecards” on their products.

c. Make green chemistry information on chemicals publicly available, to spur public awareness and empower consumers.

2. Take advantage of the large quantity of data that will be submitted to develop new tools to make it easier for firms to incorporate green chemistry in their processes:

a.  Environmental and toxicological data on existing chemicals could be used to help develop tools, such as molecular design guidelines, that would allow chemical firms to more easily integrate green chemistry into their product development.

3.  Support forward-looking research and innovation:

a. Extend research support beyond existing alternatives identification to include development of new chemical products and processes; also identify key challenges and emerging technologies as priority areas for investment in Green Chemistry and Engineering (GC&E) research

4. Foster collaborations:

a. Create programs that allow the government to incentivize collaboration between industry and academia to develop and implement GC&E based technologies.

b.  Establish an interagency green chemistry forum to identify and prioritize key areas of GC&E R&D, and mechanisms for integration into various agency programs.

These are just a few of the ways green chemistry could be integrated into a reformed TSCA in a more holistic manner. Green chemistry does not need to be a separate program, but can be woven in throughout the regulation. Instead of relying on a reactive approach, a reformed TSCA presents the opportunity to simultaneously foster a proactive approach. According to both of the proposed bills, the policy of the United States will be “to protect the health of children, workers, consumers, and the public, and to protect the environment from adverse effects of exposures to chemicals” (3). If it is included more broadly throughout this regulatory framework, green chemistry can play an important role in creating a trajectory of chemical innovation that reduces hazards from the outset, which is the most effective and efficient way to protect Americans and their environment.

References

This article references 3 other publications.

  1. 1.

    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Essential Principles for Reform of Chemicals Management Legislation. http://www.epa.gov/oppt/existingchemicals/pubs/principles.pdf. Accessed May 21

    , 2010.

    OpenURL DAVIDSON COLLEGE LIBRARY
  2. 2.
    Anastas, P. T. and Warner, J. C. Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice; Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK and New York, 1998.

    OpenURL DAVIDSON COLLEGE LIBRARY
  3. 3.

    “Safe Chemicals Act of 2010.” United States Senate, 111th Congress, S.3209, Sec. 32, 2010.

    OpenURL DAVIDSON COLLEGE LIBRARY

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Can Green Chemistry get us out of Deepwater?

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

By Elizabeth Grossman and Karen Peabody O’Brien

It is now more than three months since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers, injuring more, and unleashing its vast underwater oil gusher into the Gulf of Mexico. As this unnatural disaster continues with devastating consequences to Gulf Coast wetlands, wildlife, culture, and economy, our attention is – quite understandably – focused on the immediate. But as we hasten to rescue, repair, and restore, shouldn’t we also be thinking about what we can do to make sure this never happens again?

This question has many answers. Among them is green chemistry, the science that calls for eliminating hazards and waste at the design stage rather than at the end of the pipe – literally and figuratively. While not a magic wand, green chemistry would go a long way toward moving us away from society’s dependence on toxic petrochemicals as the basis for most manufactured materials.

Rather than preventing pollution and toxic exposures by designing products to be without inherent hazards, we’ve relied on containing, or “managing,” the risk of exposure. And risk management works… until it doesn’t. Sooner or later, it fails. Hence Bhopal. Hence toxic spills. Hence the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Accidents happen.

Historically, we’ve taken these risks and assumed the environment would successfully absorb the consequences of our industrial effluence – accidental or intentional. But clearly this is not working.

Green chemistry can change this course. It is a radical departure from the status quo, the age-old practice of valuing expedience at the expense of the environment and human health.

Green chemistry design has already created products like paint made with soy additives, pesticides made from microbes, and plastics made from orange peels. There are even green chemistry products that can break down petroleum in environmentally benign ways, products that detoxify hazardous petrochemicals and leave behind nothing more toxic than oxygen and water. Not only are these products safe for human health but who wouldn’t prefer an orange peel spill to what is happening in the Gulf?

So far, nearly 2 million gallons of chemical oil dispersants have been poured into the Gulf. Yet these EPA-approved dispersants – themselves petroleum-based products with unknown long term ecological and health impacts – are products of the kind of old thinking and outdated design that got us into this mess in the first place.

“This is an engineering miracle,” said Paul Anastas, assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development, pointing to a photograph of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. “But when we define our goals, we define the consequences of our actions,” he continued in remarks to the 14th annual American Chemistry Society Green Chemistry and Engineering conference in Washington, DC, last month. “There is no doubt,” said Anastas who is also a founder of green chemistry, “that we’re on an unsustainable trajectory.”

To change this course, said Anastas, “we need to design into our technologies the consequences to human health and the environment.”

We have the capacity to do this – to create high performance products that are both effective and environmentally benign. But until we make a real commitment to this transformation we will be limited to what Anastas called “elegant and expensive technological bandages that are inherently unsustainable.”

What would such a commitment look like?

- Every chemistry PhD student would graduate with an in-depth understanding of the environmental costs and benefits of the design choices they make. Every chemistry student would learn the biological mechanisms of toxicology. Investing in and expanding green chemistry education is key. Equipping the next generation with the tools necessary to create sustainable technologies is essential.

- Government procurement programs would use green chemistry principles to seek out the ‘greenest’ technologies. Rather than being limited to products (ranging from dispersants to carpets) that fit a standard set decades ago, government agencies would be empowered to choose and use the most environmentally innovative.

- Companies would compete to lead the transition away from chemicals of greatest concern. We are not talking about using marginally “less bad” chemicals, but about redesigning products and processes to be inherently benign and sustainable. How much smarter is it to become a market leader rather than wait for regulations to force a change?

We don’t need rocket science to prevent future Deepwater disasters. We need chemistry. And green chemistry is one of our most promising tools. Let’s deploy it to its fullest potential.

Original article at The Huffington Post

High Tech Trash

Chasing Molecules

Follow Elizabeth Grossman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lizzieg1@twitter

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Science Wednesday: Learning About Green Chemistry and Sustainability

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Posted on July 21st, 2010 – 10:30 AM

By Cathryn Courtin, US EPA. Previous Science Wednesdays.

My introduction to “green chemistry” came a few weeks ago when I sat in on a Sustainability Workshop conducted for EPA’s Office of Research and Development. The workshop was led by John C. Warner, Ph.D., founder of the Warner-Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry.

Dr. Warner has been honored with numerous awards, has hundreds of patents to his name, and enjoys widespread recognition in his field. He also co-authored Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice with EPA Assistant Administrator Paul Anastas, a book largely responsible for setting the Green Chemistry movement in motion.

During his presentation, Dr. Warner stated, “I have synthesized over 2,500 compounds, and I have never been taught what makes a chemical toxic. I have no idea what makes a chemical an environmental hazard!”

That certainly got my attention. How could it be possible that a chemist at the top of his field had never studied toxicity? Dr. Warner offered a surprising answer to this question. “In order to earn a degree in chemistry,” he stated, “no university requires any demonstration of knowledge regarding toxicity or environmental impact.” The presence of toxins, he explained “always gets found out later in the process because it’s not part of the training.”

Green Chemistry, I learned, is designed to change that. Its principles aim for less hazardous chemical synthesis and striving to design safer chemicals instead of dealing with hazard throughout the process. Of course this is not a simple matter, and Dr. Warner detailed just how complex and challenging it is. “It’s an incremental process”, he said, one which requires much research, hard work, and innovation. Products have already been patented, however, that have been designed following the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry.

“We’ve got to celebrate the improvements where they are” Warner says, and we have to proceed with the mind set to change the status quo. Green chemistry has the potential to protect human health and safety while creating more cost effective and better performing alternatives to the current process and products.

It seems that green chemistry is a huge frontier for further exploration and research as well as a huge opportunity not only for universities but for science in the U.S. as well. Green Chemistry has many other facets in addition to those I have mentioned. Although I was just recently introduced to the topic, Dr. Warner has helped me see how incredibly important it is.

About the Author: Cathryn Courtin is a student at Georgetown University in the Science, Technology, and International Affairs program. She is spending her summer working as a student contractor at EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

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New membrane makes fresh water from sea and sewage feasible.

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

New membrane makes fresh water from sea and sewage feasible.

Jul 20, 2010

Yin Yip, N, A Tiraferri, WA Phillip, JD Schiffman and M Elimelech. 2010.
High performance thin-film composite forward osmosis membrane. Environmental Science & Technology http://dx/doi.org/10.1021/es1002555.

Synopsis by Adelina Voutchkova
A special membrane turns salty sea water into fresh water, paving the way for large-scale desalination that would provide desperately needed drinking water.

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Researchers at Yale University have developed a custom membrane that can clean and purify water from oceans, salty ground water or sewage water with far less energy input than currently is required to do a similar job.

The membrane may be a big step forward in reaching the goal of reliable and affordable sources of fresh water.  Finding sustainable sources of clean drinking water is a major global challenge, especially in most of the developing world. The need is apparent in both urban areas, due to growing population and demand, and rural regions, where sometimes scarce water supplies are quickly drying up.

As fresh water becomes more scarce, desalination and filtering will be increasingly necessary to satisfy the world’s unquenchable thirst for this precious commodity. Yet, neither of the existing desalination technologies – distilling sea water water vapors by boiling then collecting the water vapors or reverse osmosis where water is pushed through membranes to filter the salt – are feasible on a large scale. Both require high amounts of energy to either boil the water or create pressure.

A newer approach does not require external heat or pressure but lacks an adequte membrane to filter the water. The techique uses a mixture of dissolved carbon dioxide and ammonia gas in water on one side and salty or dirty water on the other side of the membrane. The gas/water mixture draws the clean water through the membrane and leaves the salt and dirt on the other side. A small amount of heat is then applied to drive off the carbon dioxide and ammonia, leaving just pure, fresh water.

However, no current membranes can stand up to the ammonia.

Now, researchers report that they have developed one – a thin-film composite forward osmosis membrane. They describe the elaborate technology in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. The membrane is permeable enough to allow water to flow freely through it but resistant enough to keep the ammonia and chemicals in sewage from passing through it.

This landmark development is a beginning. More research is needed to bring down the costs of the membranes and make this technology accessible in all parts of the world.

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Cancer and green chemistry.

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010

The Boston Globe

Cancer and green chemistry

By Teresa Heinz Kerry, Terry Collins and John Warner July 10, 2010

THE PRESIDENT’S Cancer Panel recently issued a stunning report on the role of environmental factors in causing cancer. For those wondering why America has yet to win the war against cancer, the panel minces no words: “The true burden of environmentally induced cancers has been grossly underestimated.’’ If you ignore the cause, how can you prevent cancer and really win the war?

The panel urges strong actions to reduce people’s widespread exposures to carcinogens. It says the prevailing regulatory approach used in the United States is “reactionary, not preventive.’’ It concludes that US regulation of cancer-causing chemicals is ineffective for several reasons, including inadequate funding, weak laws, and undue industry influence.

This report is not the result of a liberal panel following the lead of the Obama administration. Both panel members were appointed by President George W. Bush and the panel’s public hearings were conducted before Bush left office.The report identifies a series of actions that can be taken to win the war against cancer.

First, it recommends that a prevention-oriented approach should replace the current reactionary system, and that this should become the cornerstone of a new national cancer prevention strategy.

It finds that government agencies responsible for protecting Americans from cancer need more tools, and that a more integrated and transparent system — one driven by science and free from political or industry influence — must be developed to protect public health.

Among its many recommendations, we were especially encouraged to find this: “ ‘Green chemistry’ initiatives and research . . . should be pursued and supported more aggressively. . .’’ Green chemistry offers a path forward that leads both to a healthier America and a wave of positive chemical innovations that can strengthen our economy.

World markets want safe materials. Green chemistry will be able to provide them, but only if it gets the resources it needs to flourish. Other countries, including Germany, India, and, China, are investing far more in green chemistry than the United States does. As demand grows for safer materials because of the compelling science that show how chemicals in wide use today are undermining our health, America’s chemical industry needs to become the leader.

What’s holding us back? Lack of financial support for green chemistry research and innovation. But just turning on the funding spigot won’t be enough. We also need to reinvent how chemistry is taught in US colleges and universities.

Green chemistry equips chemists with the knowledge to ask tough questions about potential hazards when they are thinking about making a new chemical. As they make choices early in new chemical design, this simple step could dramatically reduce the chances that new chemicals would be toxic.

In the past, chemists have rarely been trained to ask these questions. It’s as if a course in driver’s education never taught students about traffic accidents. Perhaps not surprisingly, students as well as potential employers are creating demand for this change.

Green chemistry has a long way to go to develop a full toolkit of chemical methods that can replace more classic approaches. But the path is clear, a “prevention-oriented’’ design strategy that can do honor to the President’s Cancer Panel’s insistence that “new products must be well-studied prior to and following their introduction into the environment. . .’’

Invigorating green chemistry is a win-win solution. Americans will become healthier because the materials in their homes, the air, and water will be safe by design, and the chemical industry will be better positioned to compete in world markets that care about chemical safety.

Teresa Heinz Kerry is chairman of the Heinz Family Philanthropies. Terry Collins is a professor of green chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University. John Warner is president of the Warner-Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry.

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Oregon could become a Green Chemistry powerhouse.

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

Group aims to make Oregon a green chemistry powerhouse

The Oregonian. Published: Thursday, July 01, 2010, 5:51 PM. Original article

Six years ago, Wilsonville-based Coastwide Laboratories introduced a line of cleaning supplies engineered to reduce toxic ingredients and break down into safe compounds after being used.

After a year on the market, the Sustainable Earth line made up 20 percent of Coastwide’s sales, while traditional cleaners made up the rest. Today, the environmentally friendly products make up 80 percent of sales for the company, a division of office supplies giant Staples Inc.

“Fundamentally the proof in the pudding is whether consumers buy the product and continue to buy the product, and what they make the decision to buy the product around,” said Roger McFadden, a vice president and senior scientist at Staples.

A group of Oregon business leaders and researchers have released a report on what Oregon should do to bolster its profile in so-called “green chemistry.” The report profiles Coastwide, Nike, Blount International and Columbia Forest Products, all companies that use green chemistry and are represented on the Oregon Green Chemistry Advisory Group.

To turn Oregon into a green chemistry powerhouse, the advisory group recommends focusing on public awareness and work-related education. Businesses and consumers need to know the advantages of green chemistry and educators need to train a workforce prepared to work in the field.

The report also proposes a hub, housed at an Oregon university, to coordinate green chemistry efforts and a state purchasing policy that gives preference to green products. It also recommends making state economic development funding available for green chemistry activities and creating incentives to mitigate the cost of adopting green chemistry.

The full report is posted on the Oregon Environmental Council’s website.

Green chemistry is based on a set of principles designed to promote environmentally sound production starting from the first design steps. The final products should be non-toxic and should break down into benign substances once they’ve been released into the environment.

The principles also promote efficiency, such as eliminating manufacturing chemicals that don’t make it into the final product and using renewable raw materials.

For the companies, that can mean more efficient production, better compliance with current and future regulation and the chance to pitch their products as the eco-friendly choice.

“Sustainability is integral to (companies’) long-term success, and increasingly they’re realizing that green chemistry is a great tool for overcoming some of their sustainability-related challenges,” said Colin Price, the research director for the Oregon Environmental Council. Price was a member of the advisory group.

Green chemistry is growing among chemical corporations, pushed by government regulation, landmark cases of chemical contamination and, more recently, the rise of a broader sustainability movement, said Todd Cort, the North America regional head of sustainability consulting firm Two Tomorrows.

Cort said the largest chemical companies deal mostly with businesses and aren’t necessarily as responsive to consumer demands. But companies down the supply chain can pressure their suppliers to produce more environmentally friendly chemicals.

“These companies are large enough to recognize the reputational risk from indiscriminate chemical production and also the operation benefits of not having these potential liabilities on the books,” Cort said.

Critics of point to a lack of standards for what constitutes environmentally friendly chemistry, Cort said. Some companies use old government regulations in their toxicity testing, and determining environmental impact can depend largely on context. For example, shopping bags that decay in the light won’t do much good in a landfill.

But the green chemical industry has nowhere to go but up, Cort said.

“There’s absolutely zero growth in the non-green sector,” he said. “Everything is getting more strict. All chemical production will have to slowly improve its green credentials over time.”

– Elliot Njus

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Removing fluorines from chemicals = greener CFCs?

Friday, June 18th, 2010

Removing stubborn fluorines detoxifies CFCs.

Jun 17, 2010

Douvris, C, CM Nagaraja, C-H Chen, BM Foxman and OV Ozerov. 2010. Hydrodefluorination and other hydrodehalogenation of aliphatic carbon-halogen bonds using silylium catalysis. Journal of the American Chemical Society 132(13):4946-4953.

Synopsis by Adelina Voutchkova
A new method for removing fluorines from fluorinated chemicals offers a promising method to detoxify some types of organohalogen pollutants, such as CFCs.

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A new method to take the fluorine atoms off of fluorinated chemicals may be a promising way to detoxify them, according to an article published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The new method would selectively remove fluorines from chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a class of compounds notorious for causing global warming. Removal of fluorines is considered highly challenging as fluorine atoms are known to bind very strongly to a molecule’s carbon framework.

The method could be more broadly applied to other organofluorines, including perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) such as PFOA and PFOS. PFOA is a chemical used in nonstick cookware and PFOS was used in anti-stain fabrics and water resistant coatings. They do not biodegrade and can only be partially recycled, therefore, defluorination to polyethylene (nylon) would be one strategy to avoid accumulation of PFCs.

Many organofluorine compounds have been banned or removed from manufacturing or industrial use due to their severe potential hazard. CFCs, for instance, were taken out of refrigerants because they can destroy the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Some others that were phased out include polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD) and dibenzofurans (PCDF). The compunds contaminate the environment and contribute to global problems. CFCs and some of their chemical cousins that replaced them have tremendous global warming potentials. So much so they have been called “super-greenhouse gases.”

In addition, harmful derivatives of these chemicals can persist in the environment where they travel through food chains and accumulate in animals and people. The health effects associated with the compounds are varied but include cancer, reproductive problems and developmental changes.

Removal of fluorines from chemicals – a process called defluorination – has been generally viewed as a way to neutralize existing over stocks of these chemicals.

Researchers from Texas A&M and Brandeis University developed the chemical defluorination technique. They used silicon and boron-containing solids to efficiently defluorinate CFCs under mild conditions.

Although this is an advancement, the technology has some significant drawbacks. The process requires large amounts of a sacrificial chemical to abstract the fluorine. The disposal of this by-product would itself be problematic, and there is no evidence it can be recycled. In addition, the report indicates that tetrafluoromethane, the smallest fluorinated chemical and commonly used in refrigerants, resists defluorination under research conditions.

Future endeavours will undoubtedly be aimed towards developing defluorination processes that overcome these drawbacks.

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Boycott Big Oil? Prepare to give up your lifestyle.

Monday, June 14th, 2010

Boycott Big Oil? Prepare to give up your lifestyle

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Has the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico got you so mad you’re ready to quit Big Oil?

Ready to park the car and take up bike-riding or walking? Well, your bike and your sneakers have petroleum products in them. And sure, you can curb energy use by shutting off the AC, but the electric fans you switch to have plastic from oil and gas in them. And the insulation to keep your home cool, also started as oil and gas. Without all that, you’ll sweat and it’ll be all too noticeable because deodorant comes from oil and gas too.

You can’t even escape petroleum products with a nice cool fast-food milkshake – which probably has a petrochemical-based thickener.

Oil is everywhere. It’s in carpeting, furniture, computers and clothing. It’s in the most personal of products like toothpaste, shaving cream, lipstick and vitamin capsules. Petrochemicals are the glue of our modern lives and even in glue, too.

Because of that, petrochemicals are in our blood. more.

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