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INNOVATIVE RESEARCH FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
GREEN CHEMISTRY RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING
Reducing hazardous substances through chemical product and process design
Introduction
EPA is leading the way with innovative
research and technology in green
chemistry for a more sustainable world.
Green chemistry is the design of
chemical products and processes that
reduce or eliminate the use or
generation of hazardous substances.
Green chemists use a set of guiding
principles and methodologies for
reducing pollution at its source, the
most desirable form of pollution
prevention.
In the design of new compounds, green
chemists look at the entire life cycle of a
chemical product, including raw
material acquisition, design and
manufacturing, consumer use, and
finally, the sustainable recycling or
disposal of the product.
Pollution Prevention
The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990
created a national policy to prevent or
reduce pollution at its source whenever
possible. Under the Act, EPA launched
a research grants program in 1991 to
encourage and support the design of
chemicals and industrial processes that
reduce pollution.
In 1993, EPA began to expand its green
chemistry and engineering research
efforts and over the years has
collaborated with academia, industry,
government and non-government
organizations to promote green
chemistry applications through
completely voluntary, non-regulatory
partnerships.
Through cooperative research and
development agreements and
technology licenses with industrial
partners, EPA is providing innovative
methods and tools that are being applied
by the chemical and fuel industries. The
partnerships have provided the chemical
manufacturers and their customers with:
• Reduced waste generation
• Less costly end-of-pipe
treatments
• Inherently safer processes and
products
• Reduction in energy and non-
renewable resources usage
• Improved competitiveness
Research Focus Areas
EPA is playing a fundamental role in
the green chemistry movement by
providing innovations in three important
areas for the chemical and fuel
industries:
• Catalysis
• Green Synthesis
• Process Intensification
Catalysis Research
A catalyst is a chemical that facilitates a
chemical reaction to cause a desired
chemical transformation. While
catalysts do their job well, they are
often expensive, may generate toxic
waste, and may consume natural
resources. EPA scientists are actively
working to address these challenges.
Continued on back
12 Principles
of Green Chemistry
Prevention: It's better to prevent waste than
to treat or clean up waste afterwards.
Atom Economy Design synthetic methods
to maximize the incorporation of all materials
used in the process into the final product.
Less Hazardous Chemical Syntheses:
Design synthetic methods to use and
generate substances that minimize toxicity to
human health and the environment.
Designing Safer Chemicals:
Design chemical products to affect their
desired function while minimizing their
toxicity.
Safer Solvents and Auxiliaries:
Minimize the use of auxiliary substances
wherever possible and make them innocuous
when used.
Design for Energy Efficiency: Minimize the
energy requirements of chemical processes
and conduct synthetic methods at ambient
temperature and pressure if possible.
Use of Renewable Feedstocks: Use
renewable raw material or feedstock
whenever practicable.
Reduce Derivatives: Minimize or avoid
unnecessary derivatization if possible, which
requires additional reagents and generate
waste.
Catalysis: Catalytic reagents are superior to
stoichiometric reagents.
Design for Degradation: Design chemical
products so they break down into innocuous
products that do not persist in the
environment.
Real-time analysis for Pollution
Prevention: Develop analytical
methodologies needed to allow for real-time,
in-process monitoring and control prior to the
formation of hazardous substances.
Inherently Safer Chemistry for Accident
Prevention: Choose substances and the
form of a substance used in a chemical
process to minimize the potential for
chemical accidents, including releases,
explosions, and fires.
he
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Research and Development
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Nanoparticles are often used as
catalysts, however they are frequently
difficult to remove from the product
mixture. EPA researchers discovered
novel pathways to make green
nanoparticles, created a process to make
inherently less toxic nanoparticles, and
developed innovative technology geared
toward recovery, reuse and recyclability
of nanomaterials.
EPA scientists have demonstrated that
nanoparticles containing an iron core
can be coated with desired catalytic
materials. By using an external magnet,
the nanocatalyst can be recovered after
the chemical process is complete. This
discovery has reduced production costs,
and eliminated waste.
EPA research has generated
nanocatalysts from benign plant extracts
and sources such as tea and winery and
agricultural waste that can effectively
degrade contaminants in soil at
hazardous waste sites. These "green-
synthesized" particles replace other
toxic nanomaterials and chemicals used
to clean up hazardous sites, thus
reducing clean-up costs and
environmental impact. A company has
licensed this proprietary technology for
its clean-up business resulting in the
creation of "green jobs."
Through a collaborative effort, EPA
also developed catalytic ozone
technology that converts waste air
pollutants such as methanol and sulfur
compounds from pulp and paper mills
to products that can be sold, such as
methyl formate, used to make chemicals
and manufacture pharmaceuticals.
Other industries are also interested in
this technology, which is projected to
save paper mills up to $500,000 per
paper mill annually and to reduce air
pollution by 100 million pounds per
site.
Synthesis Research
Chemical synthesis involves the
initiation of chemical reactions to form
a more complex molecule. Chemists
sometimes use toxic solvents to
facilitate this process.
EPA has developed technology to
replace toxic solvents with water, thus
taking the harmful effects out of the
chemical design process and reducing
waste.
Similarly, EPA is making a paradigm
shift in the way nanoparticles are
synthesized. Traditional methods
involve grinding down particles from
the large to the miniscule in size. This
creates a lot of waste, causes potential
hazards to workers, requires more toxic
solvents and uses a lot of energy.
Through innovative approaches, EPA
has shown that you can "grow particles
up" by adding material to molecules to
create nanopaticles. The result: less
toxic waste and less solvents used.
Process Intensification Research
Discoveries at EPA are paving the way
for improved industrial production
processes to manufacture chemicals and
chemical products.
Membrane technology developed by
EPA for production of biofuels has
shown in the pilot stage to significantly
reduce energy use and provide a
solution to help overcome the challenge
of mass production of biofuels for use
in cars and trucks.
EPA technology has the potential to
reduce energy costs by 50 percent for
biofuel production by using membranes
and other low-energy technologies to
separate biofuels from industrial
mixtures. The technological advances
are paving the way for more efficient
biofuel production that reduces its
environmental impact on air quality.
In another advance, the development of
the spinning tube-in-tube reactor by
EPA enables the production of
thousands of chemicals in an efficient
and sustainable way. The traditional
process of chemical synthesis involves
using solvents in reactor vessels, with
capacity as large as 20,000 gallons.
Using a table-size spinning tube-in-tube
reactor, EPA has demonstrated that
significant quantities of compounds can
be synthesized without using large
reactors and using significantly less
energy and solvents, resulting in less
waste.
Reaction times are faster, enabling one
spinning tube-in-tube reactor to produce
2 to 12 tons of compounds a year.
But even before chemists go to the
laboratory to design compounds, they
can use EPA's software, called T.E.S.T
(Toxicity Estimation Software Tool).
This tool can assist the chemical
industry with development of green
chemistry alternative products and
processes by predicting toxicity of
molecules selected for possible
chemical production.
Finally, EPA is on the cutting edge of
computational toxicology research to
develop tools that can compare toxicity
of chemicals. ToxCast and ToxPi are
new tools that may be useful in the
future to identify green chemical
alternatives.
CONTACT: John Leazer, EPA's Office of Research and
Development, Sustainable Technology Division Director,
leazer.john@epa.gov, 513-569-7840.
June 2011
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Research and Development
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