Supercritical CO2-based cleaning system among Green Chemistry award winners A chemical process that combines dense, liquidlike carbon dioxide with a special surfactant to remove stains from textiles was one of five technologies honored June 24 in the 1997 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge awards. Launched in 1995 by President Clinton as part of the Reinventing Environmental Regulations initiative, the awards program recognizes technologies that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous materials from a chemical process. It operates through a broad consortium that includes the American Chemical Society, die Chemical Manufacturers Association, and the Council for Chemical Research. The five awards, selected from more than 80 entries, also include
a chilled-ozone process that depends only on oxygen and water as raw materials to remove organic contaminants; a highly efficient, low-waste process to produce the well-known antiinflammatory drug ibuprofen; a photothermography technology that reduces the use of silver halide in film processing; and the development of biocides as a new class of antimicrobial chemistry. Working with colleagues from the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill, Joseph DeSimone developed a surfactant that can adhere to CO and water-soluble compounds The honored under the Academic egorv Through the development of the surfactant scientists have discovered a way to dissolve non-
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE Siting of uranium enrichment facility halted Marking the first time a federal body has applied the executive order on environmental justice to a claim of racial bias, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC's) atomic safety and licensing board denied Louisiana Energy Services' request to build a uranium enrichment facility in a northern Louisiana parish. Local environmentalists are heralding the May 2 decision as opening the door to consideration of racial discrimination issues under the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires environmental impact statements for federally funded projects. Louisiana Energy Services has appealed the decision. Louisiana Energy Services, a consortium including affiliates of Duke Power Co. and Urenco Ltd., a European firm operating three uranium enrichment facilities in Europe, announced its intention to build the facility in 1989. In 1991, after spending $32 million to develop an advanced enrichment technology, the company filed a permit request with NRC, according to company spokesperson Mary Boyd. Citizens living near the proposed site filed an intervenor brief, claiming the company targeted the parish because it is a predominately poor AfricanAmerican neighborhood, according to Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund attorney Nathalie Walker. The intervenors reviewed the company's site selection process and found that the outlying, predominately white communities were rejected on the basis of quality-of-life factors such as large homes. But when the company applied those same standards to poorer communities, a decrease in the quality of life "didn't register" with those making the decision, said Walker. Company officials note that the selection process included community input. "We have had tremendous support from the parish, biracial support," said Boyd. In addition, the location complies with a state law encouraging construction of new industrial sites in economically depressed areas. Legally, the board's decision is "unsupported by any evidence in the record and capriciously transforms the process of assessing impacts to one of assessing motives," Boyd charged. But Walker maintains that discrimination can occur regardless of motive: "Whether you intend to discriminate or not, if the process you are using is biased, you will end up with a discriminatory result." —CATHERINE M. COONEY
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polar, or water-adverse molecules, including grease and oils in the C0 2 . Because the process can also be used to dissolve polar, or water-soluble compounds such as vegetable and blood stains, it is effective in the garment cleaning industry. DeSimone was recognized previously for his discovery. In 1995 the New York Times dubbed him "a Wunderkind of chemical engineering." The invention spawned MiCell Technologies, a Raleigh, N.C., company headed by DeSimone and Brad Lienhart, who worked with cleaning systems at Dow Chemical Co. The cleaning system uses a process similar to that used to decaffeinate coffee. The C0 2 is heated under pressure to a supercritical state with properties of a liquid and a gas. Once the surface is cleaned, most of the C0 2 is piped out of the cleaning chamber. Although C0 2 is a greenhouse gas, "we are not adding to the carbon load at all," Lienhart said. The process uses C0 2 generated as a byproduct in the petrochemical industry and recycles it. Taking the award for the Small Business category, Legacy Systems was recognized for the development of a novel chilledozone process that depends only on oxygen and water as raw materials to clean organic contaminants from semiconductor, flat panel, and micromachining production. The process eliminates the need for large volumes of the traditionally used chemical solutions of sulfuric acid, hydrogen peroxide, and other chemicals (known as Piranha solutions). More than 4 million gallons of metal-containing Piranha solution waste generated annually The company is licensing the technology for new workstations and to retrofit existing sites Recognized in the Alternative Synthetic Pathways category, BHC Co., a joint venture of Boots Company and Hoechst Celanese, received an award for a "green" process to manufacture ibuprofen. The process, which eliminates aluminum trichloride and any cosolvents, has only three steps diat proceed with 80% atom utilization, compared with a traditional six-step process with only 40% atom utilization. The world's
