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CHEMISTRY
AIR-FORMED PERCHLORATE Controversial ion may be formed naturally in the atmosphere
T FLASH Sea salt aerosols, sparked by the electricity in lightning, may form perchlorate naturally in the atmosphere.
EXAS CHEMISTS SHOW Evi
dence for a natural atmo spheric origin of perchlo rate. For many, perchlorate is almost synonymous with the rocket fuel that has made it into U.S. groundwater and surface wa ter and subsequently into foods such as lettuce and milk. In the human body perchlorate inhibits the transport of iodide, which could lead to hypothyroidism. W h e n Andrew Jackson and Purnendu K. Dasgupta, profes sors of chemistry and environ mental engineering at Texas Tech University, and coworkers sam pled the groundwaters of a 60,000-sq-mile region in Texas
SUSTAINABLE
and New Mexico last year, how ever, they found unexpectedly high levels of perchlorate even in samples that were unlikely ever to have been exposed to synthet ic contamination. Perchlorate levels in many of the Texas samples were more than 20 ppb, and some were as high as 60 ppb. EPA has recommended a regulatory level of 1 ppb for drinking water, but a recent re view released by the National Re search Council concludes that perchlorate is less hazardous than EPA estimated (C&EN, Jan. 17, page 13). Now, the Texas group's followup research shows that the Texas
CHEMISTRY
GREEN PRIORITIES Experts identify objectives to help industry embrace sustainable practices
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Trainham 10
C&EN / FEBRUARY U ,
EVELOPING ENVIRONMEN-
tally friendlier products and processes that don't wreck a company's bottom line is an admirable goal for the chemical industry But determining exact ly how to do that still needs work. That was the agenda topic for 100 scientists, engineers, and business and policy experts who met in Washington, D.C., last week to identify national research priorities that "effectively incor porate sustainability thinking at all levels within the chemical in dustry" A report recommending specific research and education goals and funding priorities will be issued later this year. 2005
A National Academies Board on Chemical Sciences &Technology committee organized the workshop. "The chemical industry is al ways interested in being green, but it has to be cost-effective," commented committee chair James A. Trainham I I I , a vice president at P P G Industries. Now, with high feedstock and energy costs, sustainability is becoming a higher priority, he noted. "I'm an optimist and be lieve that a revolution involv ing new chemistry and engi neering and e d u c a t i o n will renew the industry." The committee will derive re
perchlorate concentrations best correlate with the concentration of iodate, believed to come from the atmosphere [Environ. Sci. Tech., published online Jan. 29, http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es0486 12x}. After also finding perchlorate in Texas rain and snow, Dasgupta's group modeled a few plausi ble scenarios for atmospheric formation. They took sea salt aerosol, exposed it to an electri cal discharge to simulate light ning, and formed perchlorate. Jackson also observed perchlo rate formation in a simulated desert water basin, which evapo rates and fills up regularly in the presence of ozone. 'There are a multitude of path ways that might make it," Das gupta says. He believes that both synthetic and natural sources of perchlorate should be monitored. Dasgupta is currently trying to study whether the rather high rates of hypothyroidism in the re gion surveyed could be attributed to perchlorate.-LOUISA DALTON
search priorities from four focus areas: promoting sustainability science literacy and education, enabling technologies to drive the application of green chem istry and engineering, develop ing alternatives to fossil fuels as the source of chemical feed stocks, and reducing the energy intensity of the chemical process industry. An overarching need identified at the workshop is better use of life-cycle analysis, a business tool to guide product design. Chemists need to understand that adding an environmental or sustainability layer over research "is not a constraint on creativi ty but rather is a challenge to cre ativity," said John B. Carberry, director of environmental tech nology at DuPont. "Forwardthinking companies are begin ning to realize this point. The economic advantages need to be understood." —STEVE RITTER HTTP://WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
