FEATURE
Promoting
Green Chemistry Initiatives Supported by a rapidly growing infrastructure, the field promises innovative solutions to pressing environmental problems. PAUL T. ANASTAS, TRACY C. WILLIAMSON, DENNIS HJERESEN, A N D JOSEPH J. BREEN
C
orporate leaders should invest in eco-efficient technological innovations and move toward sustainable business practices. Governments should establish a framework that encourages long-term progress without harming privatesector competition. Society should demand and tablish a visible market for eco-efficient products and processess These principles are advocated by 3M's CEO and chairman, Livio DeSimone, and Dow Chemical's chairman of the board, Frank Popoff, together with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in Ecoefficiency: The Business Link to oustainable Development (1). They also propose establishment of a new contract between society, government, and industry— one that addresses the rising costs and inefficiencies of traditional command-and-control regulations
1 1 6 A • MARCH 1, 1999 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS
and establishes an ecoefficiency philosophy throughout the business community. Although DeSimone and Popoff acknowledge that achieving such goals will not be easy, green chemistry, a relatively newfieldof research and development, promises to provide the science and technology base necessary for accomplishing many of the objectives of an eco-efficient society in the postmodern world of the 21st century. Green chemistry seeks to develop and deploy chemical products and pro CGSSGS that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. Interest in the field is growing dramatically, motivated as much by economic as by environmental considerations. Faced with rising environmental costs, institutions are recognizing that more efficient processes mean bottom-line energy and © 1999 American Chemical Society
environmental savings. Green chemistry links the design of chemical products and processes with their impacts on human health and the environment (24)—impacts that include toxicity and other hazards. Initiatives encompass the realization that, analogous to other performance criteria, source reduction and pollution prevention can be designed into a chemical process or a final product. Green chemistry is often cross-disciplinary, which means it can involve large government laboratory initiatives or collaborations among geographically disperse organizations that are performing research to achieve common goals. Governmentindustry-academic collaborations, such as the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) model for the Industry University Cooperative Research Center, are being used to encourage multi-institutional green chemistry initiatives. Research in this field is under way at national laboratories, led by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Los Alamos, N.Mex., with other programs at the Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, 111., the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden Colo Green chemistry initiatives are international in scope. They are being developed in the United States and throughout Europe, Japan, China, and the Pacific Rim nations. At the Second Annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference held in July 1998 in Washington, D.C., participants from 13 industrialized nations discussed green chemistry activities. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is currently undertaking an initiative on green chemistry, entitled "sustainable chemistry," which will address research, outreach, education, awards and recognition, and global information dissemination. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry has a working party (see sidebar above) that is exploring chemistry research and its applications to organic products £111 d pTOCGSSCS
Challenges and opportunities The significant growth of green chemistry since its introduction by EPA as a formal focus area in 1991, has been driven by new knowledge of what is hazardous and what is innocuous, an ever-increasing ability of chemists to selectively and efficiently manipulate molecules to create only the substances they want, and dramatically increased costs of using and disposing of hazardous substances. Environmental budgets in large chemical companies are now often as large as their R&D budgets, and in many university chemistry departments, the cost of using hazardous substances is a major budget drain. Legal and social requirements and limitations on chemical products and processes are also driving green chemistry initiatives. These pressures are increasing as a result of public scrutiny of chemical business enterprises and their environmental impacts. The chemical industry's response to the Montreal Protocol—quickly devising less damaging or essentially benign alternatives to ozone-depleting
Promoting green chemistry principles The Chemical Research Applied to World Needs Committee (CHEMRAWN) was founded in 1975. It drives an initiative of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, which recognizes that chemists can use their skills and expertise to help address pressing world problems. A major objective of CHEMRAWN is to define priorities from a chemical perspective. The aim is to provide leaders in governments, industries, universities, and other concerned organizations with information needed to effectively respond to global problems. The committee plans to host an international meeting in 2001: CHEMRAWN XIV: A World Conference on Green Chemistry: Towards Environmentally Benign Products and Processes. The conference will conduct an objective technical assessment of the state-of-the-art in green chemistry and engineering and the contribution it can make to world sustainability. It will also identify scientific gaps and define research priorities. These assessments will enable decision makers to craft policy and accelerate implementation of green chemistry principles. A green chemistry educational program will be promoted that spans educational levels, national boundaries, and cultural differences.
Rewarding green chemistry success stories Green chemistry innovations are annually recognized for contributions to basic science and protection of human health and the environment. Award programs highlight achievements in industry and academia. The programs note the excellence of green chemistry initiatives and serve to illustrate how green chemistry is scientifically, environmentally, and economically beneficial. • Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. This national awards program, launched by the Clinton administration in 1995, recognizes excellence in implementing green chemistry in industry, academia, and small business sectors. Sixteen national winners have received this award, which is presented annually at the National Academy of Sciences. It is the only presidential-level award made in chemistry. • Kenneth Hancock Memorial Award in Green Chemistry. Announced in 1997 and first presented in June 1998, this award recognizes "graduate or undergraduate students who further the area of green chemistry through their research or studies." It is sponsored by ACS's Division of Environmental Chemistry, Inc. • Environmental Champions Awards. Sponsored by McGraw-Hill Publishing Company's magazine Chemical Engineering, ,his sward is sresented to companies and small businesses. • Other awards, such as the R&D 100 Award, Discover Award, and the Renew America Award inclusively recognize accomplishments in green chemistry at companies and national laboratories that have led to the design of products and processes that reduce or eliminate the generation or use of hazardous substances.
compounds—demonstrates its ability to respond to environmental challenges. Also encouraging is the increasing societal awareness that, by reducing exposure and by reducing hazard, risk can be reduced. Hazard reduction is preferable, because reducing exposure incurs up-front costs, such as those associated with the use of smokestack scrubbers, personal protective gear, and engineering controls. Although exMARCH 1, 1999 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 1 1 7 A
Objectives and scope Green chemistry education initiatives Green chemistry is beginning to be addressed in the educational curriculum. Many colleges and universities now offer new courses on the subject or have built it into existing courses. Several public and private cooperative initiatives are noteworthy: • U.S. Environments! Protection Agency-American Chemical Society Cooperative Agreement: This initiative is structuree et oesign, develop, and distribute curriculum materials on green chemistry. They will be provided to colleges, universities, and secondary schools. Textbook supplements, laboratory modules, and reference compendia in the subject area will be provided. • INCA Internattonal Graduate eummer School on Green Chemistry: The Italian Inter-university Consortium for Chemistry and the Environment (INCA) has established a summer school in green chemistry held at the Venice International University for postgraduates. In 1998, participants included students from 13 nations who learned about principles and applications of green chemistry. • Partnership tor Environmental Technology in Education nPETE): EPA's Design for the Environment Program funds PETE to conduct green chemistry training workshops for faculty at community colleges and other undergraduate institutions. This allows faculty to return to their home institutions and establish green chemistry laboratories for training students.
posure reduction may reduce risk at a cost, it does nothing to address consequences, should exposure safeguards fail. Green chemistry, based in hazard reduction, reduces risk and consequences. Its applicability also spans a range of research objectives. Alternative chemical feedstocks and starting materials are being developed that are less hazardous than traditional feedstocks and are renewable rather than depleting. Chemical synthesis methodologies are being developed that use innocuous reagents—ideally, these are catalytic rather than stoichiometric—and maximize atom use in all steps of modified processes. Reaction conditions and solvents are also being investigated. The aim is to ensure that when substances such as solvents, separation agents, and protecting-blocking groups are used in chemical processes, they are as nontoxic as practicable. Moreover their use should be minimized in conjunction with energy minimization requirements. Green chemistry can also address toxicological and waste generation concerns. The molecular nature of products can be designed to maximize efficiency of function while minimizing characteristics that increase physical and toxicological hazards. This is now accomplished through improved understanding of molecular mechanisms of action and structureactivity relationships during and after the useful life of products. Process analytical chemistry and green chemical analyses are emphasizing the use of realtime, in-process monitoring to minimize waste before it is formed and adaptation of traditional chemical analysis techniques to reduce or eliminate the need for using hazardous substances in processes or in analytical procedures. Significant progress that has been made within the various areas of green chemistry re~ search and development is recognized annually through several award programs (see sidebar on page 117A) 1 1 8 A • MARCH 1, 1999 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS
Green chemistry is being widely adopted within industrial, academic, and government enterprises. Within industry, green chemistry has equal relevance to manufacturers, processors, and users of chemicals. Each of these sectors is challenged by the need to balance environmental protection with demands for and consequences of using hazardous chemicals. Adoption of green chemistry practices enables companies to remain competitive while achieving environmental goals and meeting obligations. Success in accomplishing objectives is achieved while maintaining flexibility and innovation. Academia has identified green chemistry as a formidable basic research challenge. Within the academic arena, to accomplish green chemistry objectives, cooperative basic research is often conducted across chemical disciplines through the use of interdisciplinary teams. For example, physical chemists working in the area of supercritical fluids may collaborate with polymer chemists to develop surfactants that modify the fluids, thereby making possible solubilization of an otherwise insoluble homogeneous catalyst constructed by an organometailic chemist. The interdisciplinary nature of green chemistry extends far beyond even this real-world scenario, well beyond the classical subdisciplines of chemistry, into areas of biotechnology, materials science, toxicology, and pharmacology. Green chemistry also provides governmental organizations with an effective way to address environmental concerns. Green chemistry is being pushed by EPA because it meets the agency's mission of protecting human health and the environment. It is also being promoted by the National Science Foundation as part of its mission to support and promote innovative, basic scientific research. The Department of Energy (DOE) is involved in green chemistry programs because it expects that the country will benefit from increased energy efficiency and reductions in global warming pollutants. The cost of developing regulations may be reduced or even eliminated because green chemistry is essentially nonregulatory in nature. Similarly, litigation and enforcement costs may be reduced or eliminated because environmental protection within a green chemistry regime is voluntary. Today, green chemistry is being used to address global and local environmental problems. Countries find green chemistry initiatives especially useful, for they provide flexibility of approach in addressing problem- and country-specific environmental issues. One nation's air emissions problems may be addressed through increased use of biomass as an energy source; another country may solve its air emissions problems by selecting volatile organic solvent alternatives.
Technology transfer Green chemistry is being practiced within at least four regimes: traditional basic academic research, industry-specific research and development, governmentindustry-academic collaborations, and technology generation and transfer among government national laboratories.
Green chemistry programs are now under way at universities and colleges. Major funding agencies (EPA, NSF, DOE, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology) have complementary grant programs that are funding green chemistry research. The basic research programs support traditional laboratory-based, principal investigators', enabling research into fundamental chemistry and chemistry-related problems. The results that are communicated through various information transfer mechanisms are benefiting the scientific and industrial community and are stimulating growth of the green chemistry discipline. Public-private partnerships have also been established that are encouraging implementation of green chemistry principles at educational institutions (see sidebar on previous page) Industry-specific R&D is usually the venue for development of chemical technologies that have imminent commercialization potential. Major chemical companies, as well as users and processors of chemicals, are currently engaged in these research efforts. Nominations for the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards highlight examples of successful industry-specific achievements. These awards are searchable on the Internet at www.epa.gov/ greenchemistry. Cooperative research programs are also under way. Programs have been started at the Center for Process Analytical Chemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle, the National Environmental Technology Institute at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, the Gulf Coast Hazardous Substances Research Center at Lamar University in Beaumont, Tex., the Center for Clean Industrial and Treatment Technologies at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Mich., and the Emission Reduction Research Center at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, N.J. New centers based on variants of this collaborative model are eiiher already operating or are planned. Recent initiatives include the Kenan Center for Utilization of C0 2 in Manufacturing at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C., Green Oxidation Catalysis at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pa., the Center for Green Manufacturing at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Biocatalysis at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich., Polymers and Green Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Green Chemistry Research and Education at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. National laboratories fill a unique role in promoting green chemistry technology transfer. They have research capabilities that bridge research and development gaps and complement the green chemistry activities of industry. They have a statutory role that requires assisting industry in all aspects of competitiveness, including green chemistry initiatives. LANL, in Los Alamos, N.Mex., is a leader in this area. It has collaborated with industry and academic researchers, particularly in the areas of alternative solvent and catalyst development, and established an international user facility to allow companies, especially
small- and medium-sized business enterprises, to test green chemistry approaches without having to finance and support internal research and development facilities. The Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) embodies a synthesis of all of the above green chemistry regimes. GCI was founded by several participant organizations: EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, LANL, the University of North Carolina, and industrial organizations including Hughes Environmental (now Raytheon Environmental) and Praxair. The founding of Green Chemistry GCI establishes a free-standing, not-for-profit, virtual institute with a mission to Challenge promote green chemistry through information dissemination education and re- Awards highlight search as well as outreach through conferences symposia and workshops (visit examples of http7/wwwlanl gov/Internal/ proiects/green and GCI's esuccessful mail listserv GreenChemExchanee for details and features offered) industry-specific GCI is providing technical support to EPA and DOE achievements. that will help develop a roadmap for Technology Vision 2020 for the Chemical Industries Program. Four workshops have been held in 1998: Dense Phase Fluids and Alternative Reaction Media; Polymer R&D and Green Chemistry; Electrotechnologies and Alternative Reaction Conditions; and Synthesis and Processing With Alternative Resources. The research agendas developed at each of these workshops primarily by industry representatives will be woven together into an overall research planning document entitled: Technology Roadmap for Alternative Reaction Media Conditions and dRw Materials. This roadmap will help OIT determine where best to invest its limited R&D funds for 1999 and 2000 in meeting its Technology Vision 2020 objectives
References (1) DeSimone, L. D.. Popoff, F. Eco-efficiency: The Business Link to Sustainable Development, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA, 1997. (2) Anastas, P. T.; Warner, JJ C. Green nhemistry: Theory and Practice. Oxford University Press: New York, NY, 1998. (3) Designing Safer Chemicals: Green Chemistry for Pollution Preventton; DeVito, S. C; Garrett, R. L., Eds.; American Chemical Society Symposium Series 640; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC. 1996. (4) Green Chemistry: Frontiers in Benign Chemical Syntheses and Processes; Anastasa P. P.; Williamson, T. C, Eds.; Oxford University Press: Oxford, U.K., 1998. Paul T. Anastas iishief, Industrial Chemistry Branch of EPAs Office ofPollution Prevention nnd Toxics. In the same office, Tracy C. Willlamson is the green chemistry program manager. Dennis Hjeresen is senior program manager of Environmental Management Programs at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N. Mex. Joseph J. Breen is executive director of the Green Chemistry Institute in Rockville, Md. MARCH 1, 1999 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 1 1 9 A
