In late June, the American Chemical Society (ACS), a nonprofit organization chartered by Congress, held its 16th annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference in Washington, D.C. The conference, which was sponsored by the American Chemical Societys Green Chemistry Institute (ACS GCI), had a theme this year of Innovation, Jobs, Sustainability The Role of Green Chemistry. A number of noteworthy new green chemistry processes were presented at the event.
Textile manufacturing involves some of the worlds most resource-wasting processes. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, it takes about 2,900 gallons of water to produce a single pair of jeans. Most of this water is used in whats known as wet processing, as well as in the dyeing of fabric.
Specialty chemicals company Clariant may soon change that. It has debuted a new process called Advanced Denim, which it says can produce a pair of jeans using up to 92 percent less water and up to 30 percent less energy than conventional methods. The process also generates up to 87 percent less cotton waste (which is often burned) and virtually no waste water, according to Miguel Sanchez, a textile engineer at Clariant.
While traditional denim production requires up to 15 dyeing vats that contain a cocktail of chemicals, Clariants process uses a single vat of liquid sulfur dyes that require only a single, sugar-based reducing agent, says Sanchez. The reducing agent, sodium hydrosulfite, is a much greener alternative to traditional reducing agents.
The result is a more eco-friendly process that cuts out most of the waste from traditional jean production. Sanchez says that if even one-quarter of the jeans produced in the world were made via the Advanced Denim process, enough water about 2.5 billion gallons would be saved to cover the needs of 1.7 million people each year. It would also prevent the release of 8.3 million cubic meters of wastewater each year and save up to 220 million kilowatt hours of electricity. At the same time, it would cut down carbon dioxide emissions significantly.
The jeans produced via Advanced Denim look similar to other commercially produced jeans, or even better, Sanchez says. Clariant claims that the process can produce looks and effects not possible today with current technologies.
One thing the world has a lot of today is algae. One thing its getting short on is fuel. For years, scientists have been searching for ways to make fuel out of algae, and many have succeeded at least in the lab. Its an economical process that, thus far, has eluded most researchers.
At the Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference, a team of researchers from Yale University presented a breakthrough toward a long-sought viable process, which turns algae into biodiesel.
The new process extracts from algae fatty molecules called lipids and transforms them into usable fuel in a single process. It would make biodiesel from algae much cheaper, faster and greener than current multistep methods that require separate stages and chemicals. The reaction involves supercritical carbon dioxide, which at elevated pressures and temperatures fills its container like a gas but is as dense as a liquid, according to the researchers.
Algae has great promise as a next-generation biofuel, a fuel that is sustainable and renewable, says research team leader Julie Zimmerman,
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New Breakthroughs Propel the Field of Green Chemistry
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