News

[Julie Haack]

August News

 

New Green Chemistry Blog:  GreenChemBlog is operated by a group of current and former UC Berkeley chemistry graduate students. Our aim is to provide a critical review of the latest Green Chemistry literature, while providing a forum where current issues including materials, toxicology and synthesis can be discussed by the community.

Any questions or suggestions can be sent to us at greenchemblog (at) gmail (dot) com.

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Green Chemistry Education: Changing the Course of Chemistry

Edited by Paul T. Anastas, Irvin J. Levy and Kathryn E. Parent

Description from their website: This ACS Symposium Series Book collects the current research and advances in the field of green chemistry, with an emphasis on providing educators with the knowledge and tools needed to incorporate recent information about this field into the chemistry curriculum.

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Prof. Dr. Azra Jaganjac Visits Oregon as IVP Visiting Scholar

Prof. Dr. Azra Jaganjac from the University of Sarajevo is developing several projects on environmental public awareness with the several universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is collaborating with professor Kenneth Doxsee from University of Oregon and is working with faculty at Çankiri Karatekin University in Turkey.  She recently published a paper entitled Green Chemistry, Popular Search for Alternative  Materials (Jaganjac, A. And F.Muštović (2010), Fondeko Svijet (Scientific Popular Review on Nature, Human and Ecology) No.31 Sarajevo

Contact Information

Prof. Dr. Azra Jaganjac
University of Sarajevo
Department of Science
E-mail: [e-mail]

 

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John Warner of the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry and Amy Cannon of Beyond Benign will be at the University of Notre Dame on Saturday, Sept. 25th. John Warner will give the keynote address for the beginning of "Energy Week".

 

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Sutheimer Garners Award for Sustainability in Chemistry Education for her work using sustainability as an organizing theme in the GMC chemistry program, the American Chemical Society’s Committee on Environmental Improvement (CEI) named Prof. Sue Sutheimer a 2010 recipient of the ACS-CEI Award for Incorporating Sustainability into Chemistry Education. As part of the award Sue was invited to give a talk on her work during a Presidential Symposium on Chemistry Education and Sustainability in Boston August 22-26, 2010.

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Attend green chemistry events at the 240^TH ACS National Meeting

The ACS Green Chemistry Institute is sponsoring two events at the upcoming 240th ACS
National Meeting in Boston to offer the latest information on green chemistry methods:

I Introduction to Green Chemistry for Professionals:  This half-day short course will introduce the concepts of green chemistry, show real-world examples, and make the business case for green chemistry.   Learn about greener, safer alternatives, metrics for comparing the greenness of chemicals and processes, and resources available from ACS GCI.  Tues., Aug. 24, 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.; workshop fee: $295 for ACS members, $350 for non-members.

I In the iSustain Workshop, co-sponsored with the Beyond Benign Institute for Green Chemistry Education, participants will be introduced to the iSUSTAIN Green Chemistry Index, a tool that generates a sustainability-based score for chemical products and processes.  Tues., Aug. 24, 2:00 p.m.; $150 for industry attendees, $75 for academics, $35 for students.

To register for either event, or to get more information, contact the ACS Green Chemistry Institute by e-mail at [e-mail] or by phone at [phone], ext. 6102.

Catch what you missed at the 2010 Green Chemistry & Engineering conference

The annual conference hosted by the ACS Green Chemistry Institute^®, June 21-23, experienced a 16% increase in attendance (470 registered attendees vs. 405 in 2009); a double digit percentage increase for the second year in a row. The annual GC&E conference, which regularly attracts scientific leaders from around the world, held technical sessions and featured six well esteemed keynote speakers.

Access to recorded presentations from the 14^th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering
conference will open to the general public beginning Thursday, August
12, 2010.

Here are some other successful accomplishments: 

• 59 international attendees (12.5%) representing 20 different countries plus the U.S.
• The conference included 19 sponsors and 12 exhibitors.
• The travel of 32 students was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. 
• For the sixth year ACS GCI offset carbon emissions for the GC&E conference.  For more information, visit http://www.americanforests.org/forestbytes/june2010_fb/index.html.
  
• For the first time ever, the conference hosted three press briefings, which have
  already gained double-digit views. 

For more information about the conference visit the conference website: www.gcande.org

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Berkeley Extension Announces New Fall Green Chemistry Courses

• Current Topics in Green Chemistry 

• Green Chemistry and Chemical Policy 

• Business and Financial Planning for Green Chemistry Innovation

• Principles of Green Chemistry

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July News

Implementation Update – Undergraduate Curriculum at UW-Parkside

• One week intensive laboratory-lecture course was offered on the topic of green chemistry (Chemistry 290) in January of 2010.
• Green chemistry was incorporated in the Advanced Organic Laboratory 401 in the Spring of 2010. The students not only did the green experiments but were also evaluating the green aspects of the traditional experiments.
• Green experiments have been incorporated in the Organic Laboratory 323 this Summer (the course is in progress).
• Several students have been involved in Chemistry 499 (Independent Study) doing research on green chemistry.  The topics included solventless reactions, Diels-Alder reaction in water, and ionic liquids.  Fall projects include investigating biological applications of the thiamine catalyzed reactions.

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Amber Wise is moving to Chittagong, Bangladesh to join the faculty at the Asian University for Women to teach green chemistry.

It's a brand new liberal arts university, so she will be designing new curriculum and programs with the other incoming faculty.  “I'm excited to embark on this new adventure and I'll probably be needing the Green Chemistry community's resources again in the very near future!”

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 The South African Chemical Institute (www.saci.co.za) is about to launch a Green Chemistry Division

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COLORADO CENTER FOR BIOREFINING AND BIOFUELS AWARDED $336,534 FROM NSF FOR STUDENT RESEARCH - May 24, 2010

A joint renewable energy center of the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU), Colorado State University (CSU), Colorado School of Mines (Mines), the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and industry has been awarded $336,534 over a three-year period from the National Science Foundation for undergraduates to conduct research related to the conversion of biomass to fuels and chemicals.

For more information on C2B2-REU program and the NSF Site Program in Biorefining and Biofuels, please visit www.C2B2web.org.

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Beyond Benign is proud to announce the 2009-2010 Outreach Fellows who have been selected to attend the prestigious 14th Annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference in Washington, DC this June.  Of the 40 Fellows that participated in

the program, five Fellows were awarded full funding support to join Beyond
Benign as presenters for the conference’s student workshop on green chemistry
outreach.  Three additional Fellows won funding with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Scholars Travel grant, which is awarded through the American Chemical Society.

Of the 55 undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students who applied for the NSF Scholars Travel grant, only 32 were selected, and we are proud that 3 of our Outreach Fellows were among the recipients:  Annie Hsieh (Gordon College), Sarah Newsky (Simmons College) and Linda Tran (Simmons College). The 5 Fellows awarded

full funding to facilitate the training of undergraduate and graduate students at the national student workshop are: Andrew Alexander (Suffolk University), Desiree Saracino (Suffolk University), Lisa Schott (Gordon College), Ben Stewart (Gordon College) and Katrina Thistle (Simmons College).

College students in Beyond Benign’s Outreach Fellows program become ambassadors of green chemistry in their local communities and mentors to younger students.  Fellows inspire students to pursue careers as scientists by demystifying science and acting as role models in local K-12 schools.  To date, over 50 college students from Gordon College, Simmons College, Suffolk University, Emmanuel College, Bridgewater State College and Cambridge College have participated in the Outreach Fellows program.

The Outreach Fellows program, along with Beyond Benign's Community & Classroom Outreach and Curriculum Institutes for Teachers focus on the education of the next generation of scientists; we aim to inspire future scientists and to create more informed consumers and voters who are able to support a growing industrial market based on sustainable products and processes.

Beyond Benign is a non-profit organization that promotes science guided by the principles of green chemistry and sustainability in order to create an environmentally, socially and economically prosperous world.

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Biorefinery: A Design Tool for Molecular Gelators (Langmuir)

George John,* Balachandran Vijai Shankar, Swapnil R. Jadhav, and Praveen Kumar Vemula† Department of Chemistry, The City College of New York, The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York, The CUNY Institute for Macromolecular Assemblies (MMA), New York, New York 10031.†Present address: Kauffman Foundation Entrepreneur Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology, 65 Landsdowne Street, PRB 325, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139.

Received February 23, 2010. Revised Manuscript Received April 23, 2010

Molecular gels, the macroscopic products of a nanoscale bottom-up strategy, have emerged as a promising functional soft material. The prospects of tailoring the architecture of gelator molecules have led to the formation of unique, highly tunable gels for a wide spectrum of applications from medicine to electronics. Biorefinery is a concept that integrates the processes of converting biomass/renewable feedstock and the associated infrastructure used to produce chemicals and materials, which is analogous to petroleum-based refinery. The current review assimilates the successful efforts to demonstrate the prospects of the biorefinery concept for developing new amphiphiles as molecular gelators. Amphi- philes based on naturally available raw materials such as amygdalin, vitamin C, cardanol, arjunolic acid, and trehalose that possess specific functionality were synthesized using biocatalysis and/or chemical synthesis. The hydrogels and organogels obtained from such amphiphiles were conceptually demonstrated for diverse applications including drug- delivery systems and the templated synthesis of hybrid materials.

Contact George John [e-mail] to get the full copy of the
article.

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Green Chemistry Programming for BCCE 2010

21st Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE) -- Denton, TX , August 1-5, 2010
Early Registration Deadline: June 3, 2010
Final Registration Deadline: July 26, 2010

Green Chemistry Education:  What, Why and How.  August 2, 2010.
 

Organizer: Deborah Exton

Session 1: August 2, 2010, 9:20am-12pm.  Presider: Deborah Exton
Paper 1: Kunle Oke Oloruntegbe, The need for green chemistry curriculum in schools
Paper 2: James Goll, Incorporating green chemistry at Edgewood College
Paper 3: Brooke Taylor, Greening of first year chemistry labs
Paper 4: Alba Ferreira, Greening inorganic experiments with molybdenium blue
Paper 5: David R.(Randy) Sullivan, Classroom demos in green chemistry education

Session 2: August 4, 2010, 2:20-5pm.  Presider: Deborah Exton   
Paper 6: Charlie Cox, Introducing green chemistry into the honors program using biofuels and biodiesel
Paper 7: Jui-Lin She, Good starting point of green chemistry education in Taiwan
Paper 8: Alba Ferreira, Alternative COD methods: A green chemistry module for instrumental analysis
Paper 9: Muhamad Hugerat, Electrolysis of water using accessible materials: A case study of its implementation with middle and high school teachers
Paper 10: Jennifer Young, Green analytical chemistry education
 
2) Green Chemistry in the Organic Laboratory.  August 3, 2010.  

Organizer:Andrew Dicks

Session 1: August 3, 2010, 9am-12pm.  Presider: Andrew Dicks
Paper 1: Ken Doxsee, Challenging assumptions about the practice of chemistry
Paper 2: Ken Doxsee, Greening the green: Case sudies of the evolution of green experiments
Paper 3: Tom Goodwin, New microscale green experiments for the organic chemistry laboratory
Paper 4: Steven Lorimor, A green chemistry twist on a guided-inquiry experiment: Stereochemistry of bromine addition to trans-cinnamic acid
Paper 5: Christopher Callam, Biocatalytic reactions: A bridge from the teaching to the research laboratory

Session 2: August 4, 2010, 2-5pm.  Presider: Tom Goodwin
Paper 6: Carmen Doria, The spread of green chemistry in Latin America through the Mexican chapter of GCI
Paper 7: Carmen Doria, Green chemistry in the organic laboratory for chemical engineering students
Paper 8: Ram Mohan, Discovery-oriented green organic chemistry laboratories using bismuth(III) salts
Paper 9: Andrew Dicks, Multicomponent reactions as green organic laboratory teaching tools
Paper 10: Loyd Bastin, Designing a green, inquiry-based organic chemistry laboratory to educate the next generation of scientists

3) Educating the Next Generation: Green and Sustainable Chemistry.  August
4, 2010.  

Organizer: Loyd Bastin

Session 1: August 4, 2010, 9am-12pm.  Presider: Loyd Bastin
Paper 1: Robert Peoples, Green Chemistry: Key to a sustainable future
Paper 2: Mary Kirchhoff, ACS: Promoting green chemistry and sustainability education
Paper 3: Robert Belford, Use of the ChemPRIME wiki to engage students in sustainability issues
Paper 4: Ted Pappenfus, Renewable energy and sustainable chemistry across the undergraduate chemistry curriculum
Paper 5: Tim Zauche, Developing a cross-discipline major in renewable energy

Session 2: August 4, 2010, 2-5pm.  Presider: Loyd Bastin
Paper 6: Sally Henrie, Development of greener laboratory manuals for introductory chemistry courses
Paper 7: Joe Shane, Using energy and sustainability as themes in a non-majors chemistry course
Paper 8: Loyd Bastin, Incorporating green chemistry and engineering into a non-majors course
Paper 9: Dalila Kovacs, Teaching green chemistry: The driving force behind the numbers!
Paper 10: Martin Jones, Green chemistry and sustainability in che