Green Chemistry Blog

We are delighted to welcome Dr Rajender S. Varma and Professor Michael Meier to the Green Chemistry Editorial Board.

Michael Meier, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Michael Meier is full professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, Germany) since 2010. He received his diploma degree (M.Sc.) in chemistry in 2002 from the University of Regensburg (Germany) and his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Ulrich S. Schubert from the Eindhoven University of Technology (the Netherlands) in 2006. His research interests include the sustainable use and derivatization of renewable resources for polymer chemistry as well as the design of novel highly defined macromolecular architectures.

Rajender S. Varma, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, USA
Rajender S. Varma was born in India and received his Ph.D. from Delhi University, 1976. After postdoctoral research at Robert Robinson Laboratories, Liverpool, U.K., he was faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine and Sam Houston State University prior to joining the Sustainable Technology Division at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1999 with an adjunct appointment at Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. He has over 40 years of research experience in management of multidisciplinary technical programs and is extensively involved in sustainable aspects of chemistry that include photocatalysis, synthesis, environmental sciences, and development of environmentally benign synthetic methods using alternate energy input using microwaves, ultrasound, mechanochemistry, etc.; efficient technologies for greener remediation of contaminants; and environmental sciences. Lately, he has focused on greener approaches to assemble nanophotocatalysts and sustainable applications of magnetically retrievable nanophotocatalysts in benign media.

Green Chemistry would like to congratulate the recent winners of the EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards promote the environmental and economic benefits of developing and using novel green chemistry. These prestigious annual awards recognise chemical technologies that incorporate the principles of green chemistry into chemical design, manufacture, and use.

2016 Award Winners

For Greener Synthetic Pathways
CB&I
Albemarle
AlkyClean® Technology:  An Inherently Safer Technology for the Production of Gasoline Alkylate

For Greener Reaction Conditions
Dow AgroSciences LLC
Instinct® Technology – Making Nitrogen Fertilizers Work More Effectively for Farmers and the Planet

For Designing Greener Chemicals and Specific Environmental Benefit: Climate Change
Newlight Technologies
AirCarbon: Greenhouse Gas Transformed into High-Performance Thermoplastic

For Small Business
Verdezyne
Renewable Nylon Through Commercialization of BIOLONTM DDDA

For Academic
Professor Paul J. Chirik of Princeton University
Catalysis with Earth Abundant Transition Metals

For more information please visit the EPA website.

Green Chemistry Advisory Board member Christian Stevens has won first prize in the Energy & sustainability stream of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Emerging Technologies Competition 2015. In this third year of the competition, applications were also accepted from outside the UK which enabled Christian and Wouter Ducheyne, of Ghent University and Caloritum in Belgium, achieve this success.

Their winning technology is a ‘Chemical pump for recovery of industrial waste heat’ and was developed jointly by the University of Ghent and Caloritum. It is an industrial chemical heat pump that can recover waste heat between 75-150°C and increase this to a useful heat level of over 200°C. This is a bio-inspired technology, being based on the phosphate transfer in the ATP-ADP cycle that occurs in the human body. Addressing a problem that cost the EU over €52bn per year, the patented technology can be implemented in production processes ranging from the petrochemical industry to food production and power generation.

The Emerging Technologies Competition is the Royal Society of Chemistry’s flagship annual innovation event and saw thirty teams pitch their emerging technologies to experienced judging panels. There are three streams to the competition: Healthcare, Energy & sustainability, and Materials and the top three teams in each stream received a prize at the ceremony on Monday 29^th June 2015. First prize winners receive a cash prize of £20,000, a profile in Chemistry World magazine, and a personalised package of tailored business support from one or more of the competition partner companies – all of which are major multinationals (such as Croda, Procter & Gamble, Pfizer, GSK etc.) with considerable experience in bringing new products to market.

We would like to congratulate Christian Stevens and Wouter Ducheyne for achieving this accolade.

Pictured: Christian Stevens (left) and Wouter Ducheyne (right), pitching at the annual innovation event.

We are pleased to welcome Dr Martina Peters as a new Green Chemistry Editorial Board Member. Martina Peters studied Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University in Germany and at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. She finished her PhD with Prof. Walter Leitner at RWTH Aachen University in 2008 and continued as PostDoc at the CAT Catalytic Center at RWTH Aachen. In 2010 she joined Bayer Technology Services as project manager, focusing on chemical utilization of CO2 as C1-building block for polymers. In 2012 she became head of “Chemical Catalysis” at Bayer Technology Services, a team providing chemical expertise for different areas of application within Bayer. Since mid-2014 Martina is a senior strategists at Bayer AG in the area of Technology and Manufacturing Strategy. In her free time she enjoys doing sports, especially mountain biking. Take a look at some of her contributions to Royal Society of Chemistry Journals (free to access until 30th August 2015):

Life cycle assessment of CO2 capture and utilization: a tutorial review, Niklas von der Assen, Philip Voll, Martina Peters and André Bardow , Chem. Soc. Rev., 2014,43, 7982-7994, DOI: 10.1039/C3CS60373C

Screening of new solvents for artemisinin extraction process using ab initio methodology, Alexei A. Lapkin, Martina Peters, Lasse Greiner, Smain Chemat, Kai Leonhard, Marcel A. Liauw and Walter Leitner, Green Chem., 2010,12, 241-251, DOI: 10.1039/B922001A

Read a selection of Roger’s papers – free to access until 15th June 2015:

The E Factor: fifteen years on, Roger A. Sheldon, Green Chem., 2007,9, 1273-1283
DOI: 10.1039/B713736M,

Green solvents for sustainable organic synthesis: state of the art, Roger A. Sheldon, Green Chem., 2005,7, 267-278
DOI: 10.1039/B418069K,

Biocatalysis in ionic liquids, Roger A. Sheldon, Rute Madeira Lau, Menno J. Sorgedrager, Fred van Rantwijk and Kenneth R. Seddon, Green Chem., 2002,4, 147-151
DOI: 10.1039/B110008B,

Professor Dr Roger A. Sheldon—65 years on, Ilya I. Moiseev,   Shun-Ichi Murahashi,   Martyn Poliakoff,  Kenneth R. Seddon and   Vytas K. Švedas, Green Chem., 2008,10, 270-270
DOI: 10.1039/B719347P