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Biobased products |
[Chemistry] |
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Posted on September 24, 2008 @ 07:00:00 AM by Paul Meagher
The United States Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) has a catalog of biobased products that they have certified. It appears that the USDA has declared a preference for such products and refers to this database as the biopreferred database.
Some of the products in this database are interesting and worth investigating further. One bio-based product is a soy-based polyol that is meant as a replacement for petroleum-based polyols. It is marketed as a replacement for polyurethane which is less ecologically friendly:
Over 2.1 pounds of CO2 are removed from the atmosphere when producing one pound of soy polyol. Producing 1 pound of petroleum based polyol adds 3.59 pounds of CO2 to the atmosphere. Therefore, the replacement of 1 pound of petroleum polyol with 1 pound of soy polyol, results in approximately 5.6 pounds of CO2 positive impact to the atmosphere.
The market use for soy polyol that sparked my interest was its use as a replacement for insulation that uses a polyurethane formulation (most current foam insulation). The manner in which soy-based insulation degrades and it's long term impact upon the enviroment is better than polyurethane-based foam insulation. National geographic addresses the question of whether polyurethane insulation is safe.
Another product in the USDA catalog that sparked my interest was a bucket made from compressed soy that is meant as a replacement for one-use plastic buckets that are used frequently in the animal feed industry. Seems like a great idea to me and something that you could follow up on by looking up the contact info (in the USDA's catalog) for the person offering a biobased alternative to plastic buckets.
This brief survey of the catalog leads me to be wonder whether any product made of petroleum-based plastic might be reformulated in a biobased way that 1) uses fewer fossil fuels, 2) is less harmful to the environment, and 3) is less harmful to human health. Innovation in biobased-products offers a range of potentially profitable and ecologically sustainable green opportunities. Agrol, a leader in this area, lists a range of applications of biobased polyols.
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Costmetic Safety Database |
[Chemistry] |
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Posted on August 14, 2008 @ 08:30:00 AM by Paul Meagher
The Cosmetic Safety Database CSD is a safety guide to cosmetics and personal care products brought to you by researchers at the Environmental Working Group.
The CSD allows you to search personal care products by product, ingredient, or company. It returns a toxicity score along with some details on the offending toxins.
The need for a CSD arose because the U.S. Food & Drug Administration FDA does not require personal care product manufacturers to disclose information about ingredients and other "trade secrets". They also do not require pre-market safety testing on products. This has created a situation where users cannot assess the toxicity of the products to themselves and the environment.
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Green Chemistry Award for Bio-toners |
[Chemistry] |
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Posted on July 22, 2008 @ 12:00:00 PM by Paul Meagher
Green Chemistry is a very promising investment area within the Environmental Technology sector. Battelle is the winner of this year's Presidential Green Chemistry Award for it's work on ways to make it easier to remove inks from papers during recycling.
The Battelle news release says this about its award:
With early-stage funding from the Ohio Soybean Council, Battelle's novel method uses soy oil and protein along with carbohydrates from corn as its chemical feedstock. The incorporation of chemical groups that are susceptible to breaking down during the standard de-inking process allowed Battelle to develop new bio-based inks that are significantly easier to remove from the paper fiber. The result is a higher quality of material recovered, which streamlines the recycling process.
Additionally, a preliminary life-cycle analysis shows significant energy savings and reduced carbon dioxide emission in the full value chain. With an expected 25% market penetration by 2010, Battelle estimates this technology could save 9.25 trillion British thermal units per year (Btu/yr) and eliminate over 360,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year.
Bio-toner technology is an excellent example of a green innovation that not only helps the enviroment but has the potential to make investors a considerable amount of money. Market penetration of green chemistry products is arguably better than status-quo products because consumers, businesses, and government are increasingly looking for green substitutes for existing products.
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Overview of photosynthesis |
[Chemistry] |
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Posted on July 10, 2008 @ 03:18:00 AM by Paul Meagher
I'm trying to understand carbon processing in plants and am using Thornley & France1 as a reference. They have a very detailed account of photosynthesis which begins with this overview statement (p. 289):
Overall, photoshythesis can be summarized by:
light
CO2 + H2O -> {CH2O} + O2
This reaction indicates that light energy is used to convert substrates, CO2 and H2O into a higher energy state, in which CO2 is reduced to carbohydrate and at the same time H2O is oxidized to molecular oxygen, O2. {CH2O} indicates carbohydrate; in fact, glucose (C6H12O6) is produced, which contains six {CH2O} units.
Oxygen is excreted as a byproduct of the photosynthetic reaction.
1 Thornley, J.H.M, France, J. (2006) Mathematical Models in Agriculture. 2nd Edition. C A B Intl. Cambridge, MA.
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