Providing Real-Life Providing Real-Life Experience While Learning Experience While Learning Green Chemistry PrinciplesGreen Chemistry Principles

Dalila KovacsDalila KovacsGGrand rand VValley alley SState tate UUniversityniversity

Allendale, MIAllendale, MI

GC&EC-Washington-June 08GC&EC-Washington-June 08

Grand Valley State UniversityGrand Valley State University Grand Rapids/Allendale, MIGrand Rapids/Allendale, MI

~24,000 studentsover 4,900 freshmen

GVSU Chemistry Department mission: strong undergraduate education!

Education for the 21Education for the 21stst century century

Meeting responsibilities:

economic

social

environmental

Yet…Yet…

Strong need Strong need forfor ‘ ‘on the jobon the job’ ’ trainingtraining::

Green principles

Sustainability

Atom economy

Life cycle analysis

Amy Duvall, Director Regulatory & Technical Affairs, American Chemistry Council, Dec 07, DEQ, Lansing, MI.

Why should we teach… Why should we teach…

“Real-life cases” are still marginal material or additional reading in the textbooks

Fundamentals of “real-life cases” are curiosities

Atom economy and life cycle analysis concepts are absent

Halogenated solvents are the first or the only choice

etc…

Have you heard of Have you heard of Green Chemistry from… Green Chemistry from…

December 2006, GVSU campus

Have you heard of Have you heard of Green Chemistry from… Green Chemistry from…

December 2006, GVSU campus

What next?What next?

We were compelled to change!

OutlineOutline

Teaching Teaching Green ChemistryGreen Chemistry & & SustainabilitySustainability

Start right! Start right! Green principlesGreen principles

Challenges and solutionsChallenges and solutions

Real-life case studiesReal-life case studies

Sample of student workSample of student work

Challenges:Challenges:

Connecting principles of green chemistry & sustainability with the currently applied industrial processes brings two main challenges:

To provide access to the newest developments in the industrial fields

To align both the teaching content and the

teaching strategies with the continuing updating requirements imposed by economic and environmental factors

Solutions to the challengesSolutions to the challenges Move away from traditional topics toward real-life cases. Change the design and methodology to fit this new approach. Initiate and develop partnership with local area businesses

interested in ‘greening' their production/operation while providing real-life cases for study.

Use the practical cases as an ideal ground for challenging the students' ability to analyze and understand the existing problems and to develop their critical thinking, while finding creative solutions.

Green Chemistry & Industrial Green Chemistry & Industrial Processes : Objective # 1Processes : Objective # 1

Start with Green Chemistry principles

Students will gain knowledge in chemistry-based industrial processes starting from the green chemistry principle instead of the traditional approach

Essential green chemistry concepts will be used as the tool of choice in analysis & understanding:

Atom efficiency (AF) Environmental (E) factor, Effective mass yield (EMY) Life Cycle Analysis (LCA).

Industrial Industrial ChemistryChemistry: Topics: Topics Introduction:

History, chemical industry survey (Top 20), traditional industrial chemistry

Major Inorganic Chemical Processes: Bulk Commodity Chemicals Industrial Gases: N2, O2, NH3, Cl2, CO2

Industrial Acids/Bases: H2SO4, H3PO4, HNO3, NaOH, Na2CO3,

Major Organic Chemical Processes: Fine Specialty Chemicals

Fossil Fuels & Petrochemicals: Ethylene, propylene, ethylene dichloride, benzene, MTBE, vinyl chloride etc.

Polymer Chemistry: PVC, acrylic, polyethylene, polystyrene, teflon. Major Commercial Products: Food additives, refrigerants, dyes, surfactants, pharmaceuticals etc.

Environmental Impact: Challenges/Solutions

Global warming, acid rain, smog, ozone depletion, eutrophication, toxic metals, carcinogens, endocrine-disrupting substances

Green Chemistry: TopicsGreen Chemistry: Topics Definition, Tools, and Principles of Green Chemistry

Feedstock, Starting Materials, Reaction Types

Methods to Design Safer Chemicals: Waste Minimization, Energy and Environment

Solvents, Catalysis, Polymers, Acids & Bases, Racemic resolution, etc…

Green Alternative Solutions: Materials for a Sustainable Economy

Anastas & Warner; Matlack; Lancaster

Green Chemistry & Industrial Green Chemistry & Industrial Processes: Objective # 2Processes: Objective # 2

Use key factors: sustainability industrial process environmental efficiency throughout the course

Focus continuously on: perennial availability of resources elimination of waste.

Green Chemistry & Industrial Green Chemistry & Industrial Processes: Objective # 3Processes: Objective # 3

Investigate a scaled-up processes currently in-use

Reflect on the application of green chemistry principles

Explore exhaustively the current status of knowledge and innovation in the filed

Propose creative solutions.

Use real-life cases as vehicle to provide an interactive problem-solving approach

A viable solution: A viable solution: academia-business partnershipacademia-business partnership

Use the course as a vehicle to provide the students with:

theory and philosophical principles

the opportunity to manifest their creativity in applying the green chemistry principles to existing, unsolved problems in industrial scaled-up processes.

How to do it?How to do it? Build a partnership among the local area

businesses interested in ‘greening’ their production and/or operation and the GVSU students.

The business will provide the real-life problem.

The students will apply and practice their knowledge of green chemistry principles aiming toward providing new and innovative approaches to the real-life problem presented.

At At beginning of the semester:

Available project/partnerships presented to the students.

Students choose the problem they will like to work on.

Once the student-company partnership is established, the company have an excellent opportunity to directly involve the students.

To the student: To the student: At the end of the semester you should be able to:

Locate, evaluate and use the available information connected with green chemical processes.

Integrate the area of Green Chemistry into your own of chemistry expertise

Integrate the variety of data addressing both the effect of humans on the environment and the effect of the environment on the humans using green chemistry principles.

Effectively articulate green chemistry principles through effective speaking.

Articulate green chemistry principles through effective writing. Demonstrate an understanding of the important role chemistry and its

industrial applications play in our everyday lives.

Student gainStudent gain

Knowledge in industrial processes based on green chemistry principle instead traditional approach

Understanding of sustainability and the environmental efficiency with focus on benign chemistry, renewable resources and on elimination, recovery and reutilization of waste

Direct involvement in solving real-life problems by

investigate and reflect on the application of ‘green’ processes currently in-use and propose creative solutions to the problem they engaged in solving.

Business gain:Business gain: Opportunity to actively participate in the education of West

Michigan future workforce.

Opportunity to mentor the student in what would be most likely his/her first exposure to production scaled processes.

A ‘free consultant’ with time and imagination on his/her side interested to explore all the available answers and solutions to the problem they are presented with and capable to propose unbiased and creative solutions.

Opportunity to be part of a unique partnership and a model for the implementation of green chemistry as an educational tool in real-life setting.

GVSU networkGVSU network Annis Water Resources Institute (AWRI)

http://www.gvsu.edu/wri/

The Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy center (MAREC)

http://www.gvsu.edu/marec/

West Michigan Science & Technology Initiative (WMSTI)

www.wmsti.org

Area businesses Area businesses interested in partnership interested in partnership

Herman Miller www.hermanmiller.com

Crystal Flash www.crystalflash.org

Crutchall www.recycleroofs.com

Xtendercorp www.xtendercorp.com

Barrier Technology www.barriertech.com

What do we hope for?What do we hope for?

students will have a better understanding of the fundamentals of green chemistry and of the ways to avoid pollution by benign molecular design.

students will bring a new way of thinking in the working place: they will be trained to approach problem creatively, and be open to change.

Future PlansFuture Plans

Continue networking with area businesses.

Find avenue of interest for the ‘greening’ of scaled-up processes.

Explore the opportunity for hands-on research component specific to each partnership company.

Student work: topic choicesStudent work: topic choices

Degradable biomedical supplies: sutures, drug delivery devices and dialysis

Lumber preservation Vegetable-based resins Tires disposal Green cement Polystyrene alternatives Biodegradability of polymers Green car-racing Paper manufacturing Spray-paint application Starch-based polymers in films & bags Enzymatic catalysis

Web-based companies analysisWeb-based companies analysis The two companies I compared are ITW DEVCON FUTURA & DSM NEORESINS

INC. The former is a custom compound purchased resins company located in my hometown of Oxford, Michigan, while the latter is involved with plastics, materials and resins located in my former home of Frankfort, Indiana. ITW DEVCON FUTURA has no on-site releases, 223 off-site releases and 7711 total transfers for further waste treatment. DSM NEORESINS INC has 1229 on-site releases, 196 off-site releases, and a total waste managed of 23894. ITW's most significant wastes were diisocyanates and lead compounds, but DSM's significant wastes were much more varied. DSM lists 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene, acrylic acid, acrylonitrile, butyl acrylate, glycol ethers, ethyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, propyleneimine, and styrene.

What is clear from these examples, is that resins cannot be categorized as one thing and wastes from one type of resin might be very different from another.

I wonder if their products can be used interchangeably or if Indiana and Michigan have different regulations for toxic release.

B. K., student, GVSU

I have an idea… an I have an idea… an Osmosis TowerOsmosis Tower

Idea: eliminate the energy needed to pump water up to the top of water towers and purify the water at the same time by use of solute pumping and distillation by the suns rays.

Principle behind the solute pump: osmosis. Each level would have an increasing concentration of salt. The water would be pumped to the top and at the top, the heat of the sun, focused by lens, causing the water to distill. This would increase the concentration and cause a chain reaction of more water being pumped up. The pure H2O could be collected for distribution

Nobody ever expected Feddeler Construction/Demolition Landfill to be such a hazard to the town of Lowell, Indiana. Sure, landfills are dirty and smelly, but small town residents usually trust that the owner of such a landfill would follow state regulations to keep the town safe. That’s a very wrong assumption to make in this particular case.

From 1971 to 2003, the 40 acre Feddeler Landfill took in construction material, demolition waste and buried at least 500 barrels of toxic acrylonitrile underground. However, the conspiracy is not a new one. Dumps built since the 1970s have natural or synthetic “liners” at the bottom to prevent seepage, but it is assumed that the founder, Robert Feddeler, had been taking waste into the dump since the 1950s.

Feddeler Landfill, Lowell, Indiana

Green Chemistry Article

Assignment my search of the web site for www.chemistry.org turned

up 20,800 results for the query “green chemistry.” For www.google.com, I found 32,000,000 results, and at www.googlescholar.com, 1,170,000.

Compare this to my search of: www.cbs.com: 91 results,

many not specific for green chemistry, or, not even about the subject (some were advertisements). Similar results were obtained at www.nbc.com, www.abc.com. and www.nyt.com (the New York Times).

What this seems to indicate is a lack of dissemination of information on green chemistry beyond the confines of professionals and students who work in the field of chemistry.

Green Chemistry Article- Assignment Green chemistry is going to create a paradigm shift in the way

products are manufactured.

It is such a change from “business as usual” that amazing stories about it should be on the TV and in newspapers every week.

However, given the fascination our populace has for the sensational, the lurid and the trivial, I am not surprised that the news outlets don’t run stories much more often.

Part of the problem is definitely how to package the story to make it exciting, maybe with a little touch of science fiction. A good science writer could provide that element. In any case, most of the public, judging by the paucity of results found at the news outlet web sites, have never heard of green chemistry.

Most of the public, judging by the paucity of results found at the news outlet web sites, have never heard of green chemistry.

They are not likely to anytime soon. This is sad, because most stories about accelerating environmental problems paint a scenario that counsels despair.

Green chemistry shows that we humans have a powerful tool that we can employ to reduce pollution, re-use materials, and greatly reduce the amount of toxic materials entering the biosphere. Green chemistry fosters hope that the human intellect and capacity for ingenuity can, combined with the political will, snatch our planet away from the brink of the abyss. And the need for the political will to exert itself is why the public needs to hear about green chemistry! They are the political will.

Dear Editor:Dear Editor:A wonderful tool has been unraveled in just the last 15 years that allows the chemical industry to revolutionize the manufacture of all the products we have come to expect as part of everyday life. It is called “green chemistry.” It consists of replacing one manufacturing process which uses too many starting materials and creates a lot of sometimes toxic unusable waste with a new process. This new process utilizes smaller amounts of non-toxic (or less toxic) starting materials, requires less fossil fuel and produces little to no waste, and, usually, no toxic by-products. Hence the designation “green chemistry” to indicate that it is friendly to the environment. Green chemistry is still in the early stages of replacing the old paradigm of manufacturing. That was based partly on something we used to believe: that we will never run out of anything. Now we know we can. So we must begin to prepare for a time of scarcity. The ingenuity of green chemistry is in the ability of chemists to find substitute methods that greatly reduce waste and toxics. This staves off scarcity, buying us time to create an alteration in lifestyle expectations, which will surely have to occur as the world population continues its upward trajectory. The replacement of old manufacturing methods with those of green chemistry should give hope to the public that we needn’t give up all comforts and conveniences in order to “save” the planet. Human creativity and intellectual prowess, coupled with political will, has gotten us through in the past. It should suffice in the future.

Regional & National supportRegional & National support

American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute State of Michigan Governor: executive directive No 2006-06, encourage the

adoption of green chemistry principles in Michigan. The directive specifically states that all agencies "shall

establish a Green Chemistry Support Program to promote and coordinate state green chemistry research, development, demonstration, education, and technology transfer activities in Michigan".

P2 grant-MIDEQ