Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2002, 41, 4439
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Green Chemistry and Engineering: Preface This issue of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research contains a number of papers that deal with Green Chemistry and Engineering. In contrast to earlier special issues that have drawn papers from particular conferences or honored distinguished researchers, this special issue is a collection of papers that seeks to focus our attention on an important area of research and practice in the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering communities. Green Chemistry and Engineering means utilizing alternative feedstocks, developing, selecting, and using less environmentally harmful solvents, finding new synthesis pathways, improving selectivities in reactions, generating less waste, avoiding the use of highly toxic compounds, and much more. There is a growing awareness that the principles of Green Chemistry and Engineering are critical to the continued success of chemical processing industries. As noted by Charles O. Holliday Jr., Chairman and CEO of DuPont, “There are ... enormous challenges [for reduction of waste and emissions]. Extrapolation of current trends paints a picture of an unsustainable world ... the steady decline in key global ecosystems.” Thus, there is a tremendous opportunity to develop products and processes that are both environmentally friendly and economically viable. The papers in this issue represent just some of the steps that are being taken in that direction. They cover a multitude of topics, ranging from the use of supercritical fluids as solvents to life cycle assessment. Green Chemistry and Engineering is not a discipline in itself but rather a way of applying our talents in kinetics, catalysis, reaction engineering, materials and interfaces, process design and control, separations, and thermodynamics to lessen the impact that products and processes have on the environment. Recently there have appeared a number of fine monographs that describe the general principles of Green Chemistry and Engineering.1,2 Every summer researchers and practitioners gather at the Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference in Washington, DC (http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/greenchemistry/index.htm or http:// www.acs.org under meetings), to share their advances and honor those companies and academic researchers who have been selected to receive the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. We hope that you will read this diverse collection of papers with interest and will, if you have not already, consider how your research creativity might be focused on improving profitability through pollution prevention. Literature Cited (1) Anastas, P. T.; Warner, J. C. Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice; Oxford University Press: New York, 2000. (2) Allen, D. T.; Shonnard, D. R. Green Engineering; Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 2002.
Joan F. Brennecke† University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556 574-631-5847 574-631-8366 fax
[email protected] David T. Allen* Department of Chemical Engineering University of Texas at Austin Austin TX 78712 512-471-0049 512-471-0542 fax
[email protected] * To whom correspondence should be addressed. Phone: 512-471-0049. Fax: 512-471-0542. E-mail:
[email protected]. † Phone: 574-631-5847. Fax: 574-631-8366. E-mail:
[email protected]. 10.1021/ie020477e CCC: $22.00 © 2002 American Chemical Society Published on Web 07/30/2002
