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plications. The group represents major U.S. plastics producers, including the top three for polycarbonate—GE Plastics, Bayer, and Dow Chemical. The project leader for the Consumers Union tests, ecologist Deborah N. Wallace, says she followed testing procedures similar to those used in previous FDA studies. Her analysis found BPA levels around 1 ppb, far below the 50-ppb reference dose for oral exposure set by the Environmental Protection Agency. 'We are not saying that [using these bottles] is a risk," Wallace concludes. "We don't know for sure, and that is the whole issue." Paige Morse
DuPont, UNC R&D effort yields results A collaboration between DuPont and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is yielding results: a DuPont investment of up to $275 million in fluoropolymer facilities that will be based on technology developed with the school. The new technology has been in the works since 1990 under a partnership between DuPont, UNC chemistry professor Joseph M. DeSimone, and his students. It uses supercritical carbon dioxide as the fluoromonomer polymerization solvent, replacing water and chlorofluorocarbons. DuPont will build a $40 million development facility at its Fayetteville, N.C., site to evaluate the technology for its Teflon fluoropolymers. If the technology is successful, the company plans to spend another $235 million on worldscale fluoropolymer and monomer plants. Production at the 2.5 million-lb-peryear development unit is set to start in 2000. DuPont says the location for the full-scale plant is still under evaluation, but North Carolina officials expect it will be built in Fayetteville, too, if pending economic incentive legislation is passed. The plant would start up by 2006. Klaus Kimpel, DuPont's fluoropolymers director for the Americas, says the company will initially produce its fastgrowing fluorinated ethylene-propylene and perfluoroalkoxy resins, used in communications cables, semiconductors, and other applications. However, other products, including polytetrafluoroethylene, can be made with the new technology, he says. 10 APRIL 26,1999 C&EN
Kimpel says DuPont was attracted to the new technology because the company is moving away from chlorofluorocarbons as reaction solvents butfindingdrawbacks with alternatives such as water. According to UNC's DeSimone, fluoromonomers are much more soluble in C0 2 than they are in water, improving the flexibility and efficiency of the polymerization process. Also, using supercritical C0 2 as solvent avoids the polymer isolation and drying necessary with water, as well as subsequent waste disposal issues. In fact, DeSimone believes that C0 2 has broad potential to replace water and organic chemicals as industrial solvents. In 1995, he and former students founded a company, Micell Technologies, to commercialize a new dry-cleaning process that employs C0 2 and surfactants instead of perchloroethylene.
Ifi* DeSimone is also codirector of the Kenan Center for the Utilization of Carbon Dioxide in Manufacturing, a not-forprofit research organization sponsored by companies such as DuPont, Dow Chemical, Rohm and Haas, Solvay, Air Products & Chemicals, BOC, and Praxair. He says many of the polymers now made in water—including polyvinyl chloride, acrylics, and styrenics—could be switched to C0 2 with big cost and environmental savings. Fluoropolymers represent the second successful collaboration between DuPont and UNC. In 1996, a partnership between DuPont and chemistry professor Maurice S. Brookhart yielded a new polyolefin catalyst system that DuPont is now commercializing under the Versipol name. Michael McCoy
Firms more environmentally responsive. NAM says Manufacturing companies are aware of the need to change their processes to reduce waste and pollution and want to do so, but they still face significant permitting delays from environmental agencies, concludes a new survey by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). 'The smartest manufacturers know that protecting the environment is the right thing to do for their communities and their businesses," NAM President Jerry J. Jasinowski says. "Our survey shows that most manufacturers are making a commitment to the environment that goes well beyond what government regulations require." This Jasinowski survey is NAM's first attempt to take a comprehensive look at its members' environmental attitudes and activities. NAM surveyed 2,000 of its member companies about their activities on the environment front and their relationships with regulatory agencies. Of manufacturers responding to the survey, about three-quarters indicated a good working relationship with their state environmental agencies, but only about half said their relationship with the federal Environmental Protection Agency is good, mainly because of bureaucratic impediments. Nearly a third of survey re-
spondents said they had experienced costly delays in getting environmental permits, and 28% said they had postponed expansions because of such delays. Respondents also indicated that many have tried to take advantage of voluntary EPA programs, like the recently completed 33-50 emissions reduction program for toxic chemicals. More than 80% said they have voluntarily changed manufacturing processes to reduce waste or emissions, and nearly half of those said the company saved money as a result Jasinowski said the survey shows that "we have made steady progress in the relationship between industry and government, but beneath the surface there are some serious problems with our environmental regulatory system." Mainly, the permitting process is too slow and bureaucratic, and it costs too much money. And, according to Jasinowski, EPA is also changing. "EPA has developed a number of programs with an emphasis on voluntary activities," he said. But it has a ways to go. "We don't think they are flexible enough, there is not enough emphasis on sound science, and not enough consideration of the costs versus the benefits" of regulations. David Hanson
