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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (4347)	6/28/2006 8:42:22 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24210

'Green chemistry' pays off Updated 6/25/2006 7:12 PM ET By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY There's a globby problem mucking up the nation's search for alternative energy sources. When farmers take soybeans or corn and turn them into biodiesel, they end up with a whole lot of glycerin, a colorless, viscous, slick liquid that's the primary ingredient in clear soaps. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that when U.S. biodiesel production hits its stride, it will make about 1 billion more pounds of the glycerine than the market needs per year. Enter Galen Suppes, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Suppes and his team have developed an efficient way to turn that unwanted byproduct into a cheap, non-toxic substitute for antifreeze. Which is why on Monday Suppes is being honored with a coveted Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge award in Washington, D.C., according to officials at the EPA and the American Chemical Society. The recipients, whose work prevents pollution through better chemical design, are chosen yearly by a panel of distinguished chemists. The program, administered by the EPA, is awarded by the president. Suppes created a process that fulfills numerous green chemistry goals. It takes something that would be a waste product and makes it useful. It finds a way to replace something that isn't renewable (current propylene glycol antifreeze is made almost entirely from petroleum) with something that is, in this case corn and soybeans. Another prize winner this year worked to decrease the amount of toxic waste from seemingly innocuous things such as cereal boxes, potato chip bags and milk cartons. The printing process requires the use of solvents to clean the printing plates. The solvents are volatile, hazardous air pollutants, subject to stringent reporting requirements and expensive to dispose of. Arkon Consultants and NuPro Technologies have found a way to replace them with a less toxic, less volatile and less flammable solvent that's not only biodegradable but made from vegetables. Three other green chemistry awards were also given. One went to Codexis Inc., which used directed evolution to develop microorganisms that make a key ingredient in the popular cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor. Merck & Co. won for creating an efficient way to make the active ingredient in a new diabetes drug called Januvia, eliminating 220 pounds of waste for each pound of active ingredient manufactured. And cleaning giant S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. won for a program that allows company chemists to spot more toxic products and work on reformulating them. The key to green chemistry is that companies do it not because the government forces them to, but "because it's more profitable, cheaper and customers like it," says Paul Anastas, director of the Green Chemistry Institute at the American Chemical Society. usatoday.com