In recent years, more and more researchers have been trying to
find environmentally benign ways to manufacture products, create chemical
reactions, treat waste, generate energy and monitor air and water.
NSF supports a broad range of such research projects, known
collectively as "green
chemistry."
Perhaps the most immediate of green chemistry’s many goals is
to reduce or eliminate the use of toxic solvents, poisonous
metals, corrosive chemicals and other hazardous substances.
A notable example of this effort is the work of Joseph
DeSimone. Along with his colleagues at the University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the North Carolina State
University, Raleigh, DeSimone has been pioneering ways
to carry out a variety of industrial scale chemical processes
using nothing but carbon dioxide as a solvent. The techniques
have proven successful in applications ranging from the manufacture
of Teflon to the production of semiconductors, and if
employed widely, could dramatically lower the release of
many industrial pollutants. By no coincidence, DeSimone serves
as director of the NSF Science and Technology Center for Environmentally
Responsible Solvents and Processes and co-director of
the Kenan
Center for the Utilization of Carbon Dioxide in Manufacturing,
a nonprofit research organization sponsored by 16 corporations
worldwide.
Meanwhile, other scientists are focusing on the use of hydrogen
as a source of energy. Hydrogen is an attractive fuel for
automotive power and other applications because it produces
an exhaust that is nothing but water vapor, with no noxious
emissions to pollute the air and no carbon dioxide to exacerbate
global warming. Hydrogen can be burned in a more-or-less
standard internal combustion engine. Or it can be used in
a far more energy-efficient device known as a fuel cell,
where the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen creates an electrical
current.
Either way, unfortunately, pure hydrogen is difficult to
come by. It can be extracted from natural gas but an inevitable
by-product of the process is carbon dioxide -- the very
thing that the use of hydrogen is intended to eliminate.
So scientists are looking at a host of alternatives. Recently,
for example, researchers found that sunflower oil can yield
hydrogen suitable for powering fuel cells in cars. Others
are studying leaves, which are a kind of natural "fuel
cell" in reverse: they use the energy of sunlight to
separate water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen. The researchers hope
to emulate this process on an industrial scale.
Taken together, such green chemistry research projects will
not only pay off in a cleaner environment, but will take
us a long way toward the more productive use of raw materials,
a greater emphasis on renewable resources and potential
energy independence.
Indeed, NSF’s green chemistry portfolio is still growing,
but it has already had a substantial effect. Nearly all of
the academic winners of the Environmental Protection Agency's "Presidential
Green Challenge Award," which recognizes major
contributions to green chemistry and engineering research that
has significant societal impact, have been supported
by NSF.
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