Awards Given for Green Innovations

GREEN CHEMISTRY

Presidential Awards recognize chemists for developing cleaner and economically viable technologies

The 2005 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards were presented to five companies and an individual during a ceremony held on June 20 at the National Academy of Sciences, in Washington, D.C. Administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, the awards program, now in its 10th year, is a competitive effort to recognize superlative chemical products and processes that help achieve federal pollution-prevention goals.

This year's award recipients and their winning technologies are as follows:

◾ Merck was recognized in the alternative synthetic pathways category for its redesign of the synthesis of aprepitant, the active ingredient in Emend, a drug used to reduce nausea and vomiting caused by cancer chemotherapy.

◾ Archer Daniels Midland and Novozymes were recognized in the alternative synthetic pathways category for jointly developing an enzymatic method to produce ADM’s NovaLipid line of zero-fat and reduced trans-fat oils, which are used in foods.

◾ BASF received the award in the alternative solvents and reaction conditions category for its acrylate-based UV-cure paint primer for small automotive repairs that reduces volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions.

◾ ADM also garnered the award in the designing safer chemicals category for its nonvolatile Archer RC (reactive coalescent) propylene glycol monoester, an additive for latex architectural paints that reduces VOC emissions.

◾ Metabolix was selected as the award winner in the small business category for developing a fermentation process to produce polyhydroxyalkanoate “natural plastics” from renewable feedstocks such as plant sugars or oils.

◾ Robin D. Rogers of the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, received the academic award in the area of alternative synthetic pathways for developing ionic liquids as recyclable solvents to dissolve and process cellulose into advanced functional materials.

The 2005 Kenneth G. Hancock Memorial Student Award in Green Chemistry, administered by the ACS Division of Environmental Chemistry, also was presented at the ceremony. This years recipient was Anindya Ghosh, a graduate student in chemistry professor Terrence J. Collins group at Carnegie Mellon University. Ghosh was selected for his work on iron(III) tetraamido macrocyclic ligand activators that use hydrogen peroxide or oxygen for industrial oxidations (C&EN, Feb. 21, page 32). The catalysts are being pursued as cleaner and safer alternatives to chlorine- and metal-based oxidations.