Tag: industry

Organizers: Michael Kirschner, President, Design Chain Associates, LLC; Dr. Leo T. Kenny, President, Planet Singular; John Katz, Pollution Prevention Coordinator, US Environmental Protection Agency

The supply chain of the electronics industry is long, vast and convoluted. Improving the sustainability of product and process chemistry is challenging because chemical selection is normally done (often far) upstream of the brand owners and, given the nature of the products, many electronics companies have little or no chemistry expertise. Poor and inadequate processes to connect downstream concerns and requirements regarding environmental/human health performance with upstream decision points limits opportunities for implementing green chemistry and engineering solutions.

Challenges include chemistry knowledge; toxicology expertise; supply chain communication and motivation; management engagement; material composition collection, information, and interpretation; lack of information on how suppliers use chemicals; a wide diversity in processes where chemicals are used, and lack of worker knowledge of – and control over – the hazards associated with the chemicals they use; intellectual property concerns; cost, volume, quality, and availability of solutions; and many others. But the industry is huge and innovative, and opportunities abound throughout it if adequate visibility and incentive can be provided to design out issues up front.

We seek speakers who can highlight where opportunities exist and solutions are needed; areas where solutions are being developed and implemented for materials, processes and products across the semiconductor and electronics design and manufacturing supply chains; and examples of how and where industry, academia and government can and are working together.

Organizers: Samy Ponnusamy, Millipore Sigma and Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering; Srinivasan Ambatipati, McNeese State University

This session will highlight the processes that are inspired by novel design strategies to enable a circular-sustainable economy. Case studies will be presented to illustrate how industry/academia/NGO have successfully implemented novel design strategies to achieve circular-sustainable economy. The examples from the session will describe the design and approaches taken, the challenges faced and how a solution for the challenge was achieved. Also, this session will discuss the importance of implementing sustainability as a basic design criterion to successfully achieve a closed-loop economy.

Organizers: Karolina Mellor, Yale University; Paul Anastas, Yale University

Companies often face challenges in the research, development or production stages of new products. These challenges require creative solutions that are based on innovative science. But while these accomplishments have taken place largely in the industrialized nations, there are a number of businesses and organizations that have successfully implemented sustainable design all around the world. In order to empower a broad-based adoption of green chemistry practices, to build a more sustainable economy, and accelerate sustainable industrial development, changes must also happen in developing and transitioning countries.

This session is designed to highlight these practices and bring together successful green chemistry case studies from all around the globe. Speakers are invited to share a challenge and how it was resolved using principles of green chemistry given their country’s resources and needs. In addition to industrial case studies, academic examples of green chemistry application and experiences in implementing green chemistry in developing countries are welcome. The session further builds on the UNIDO Global Green Chemistry Initiative whose mission is to raise awareness of Green Chemistry and build capacity to reduce the generation and use of hazardous chemicals throughout the industrial life cycle in developing countries.

Organizers: Thomas A. McKeag, UC Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry; Justin Bours, Cradle2Cradle; Jeremy Faludi, Technical University of Delft

The industrial sector of additive manufacturing (AM) has experienced double-digit growth over the last decade, as the volume and type of material produced using the seven recognized types of 3D printing has expanded. Initially used mainly for prototyping and specialty production, the growth in the field is now dominated by parts manufacture, an exploration of novel materials, and an expansion of user types, including home use. While this disruptive technology has enabled the saving of energy and materials in some applications, as well as the relatively cheap production of complex shapes, current practices also prompt caution. Many of the chemicals used in AM are of concern; for example, typical Stereolithography (SLA) resin chemicals may cause skin and eye irritation, skin sensitivity, and aquatic toxicity. As such they also represent a potential cost to businesses such as hazardous waste disposal charges. They also represent a potentially higher cost in liability and loss of consumer goodwill. The potential for sustainability gains from AM should not be precluded by material toxicity, environmental persistence, and the failure of safety controls as the market widens to home use. Currently there are relatively no universally accepted material safety standards for AM process types, although committees associated with ISO and ASTM are preparing drafts standards on the subject. Clearly, the design of safer formulations and processes in AM will yield significant health benefits and cost savings as this sector continues to expand. It may also yield more innovations in materials manufacturing, reuse and recycling.

This symposium will bring together experts in the areas of:
• 3D printing technology
• materials innovation
• green chemistry
• life cycle analysis
• systems thinking
• alternatives assessment

The presentations and discussions will highlight current and emerging trends in AM, selectively target several of the current challenges or barriers to safer AM, and discuss ways that cooperative trans-disciplinary efforts might advance the field of green additive manufacturing. In particular, we will tie green chemistry principles to the challenges and opportunities of this field and how practitioners can play a part in making AM safer and more sustainable.

Organizers: Robert Giraud, Senior Principal Consultant, The Chemours Company; Kirti M. Yenkie, Assistant Professor, Rowan University

Separations lie at the very heart of chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. Distillation has been the technology of choice for these separations because it is a well-understood, reliable, predictable method that works. However, industrial reliance on distillation comes at a great cost because use of this technology accounts for over 50% of the capital investment of chemical processes and over 10% of global energy consumption. Furthermore, in the absence of more cost-effective and more sustainable practical separation processes, used solvents and other valuable materials are often incinerated rather than recovered. Accelerating the industrial application of sustainable separation processes as alternatives to distillation requires the widespread availability of next generation process selection, evaluation, simulation, and design tools for alternative separation (ALTSEP) processes that make use of mass separating agents (e.g., adsorbents, membranes) in whole or in part (i.e., hybrid separations). Recent findings suggest new techniques and tools are being developed.

Presentations in this symposium will highlight recent developments in selection, evaluation, simulation, and design for energy-efficient ALTSEP processes to help green chemists and engineers see what they can leverage today. Examples of target presentation topics for this symposium include:

• Techno-economic analysis for sustainable separation process design,
• LCA-based selection of solvent recovery options,
• Evaluation metrics for rapid screening of mass separating agent materials,
• Heuristics for selection and design of mass separating agent based processes,
• Systems design of mass separating agent based processes,
• Conceptual design of hybrid separation processes,
• Process simulation and/or optimization of mass separating agent based processes, and
• Factors in de-risking industrial adoption of mass separating agent based processes.

Presenters are asked to also identify where further progress is needed to enable broad availability of process selection, evaluation, simulation, and design tools for predictable scale-up and operation of ALTSEP processes to facilitate widespread deployment of sustainable separation processes.

Organizer: Juan Colberg, Pfizer

The year 2020 marks the fifteen anniversary of the creation of the Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable. With decades of innovation promoting solvent and waste reductions, safer chemistry, greener processes, cost savings, recognition and awards, this session aims to provide an update on recent contributions in these areas by members of Industry and academia. The session also will provide a forward look to the emerging technologies needed to address the increasing expectations from customers and regulators around the world on how best to deliver our APIs to our patients using processes that minimize or eliminate the environmental impact.

This symposium will create a conversation about emerging technologies needed to deliver our products under the current environmental regulations and customers’ expectations.
• New green chemistry tools and its application to the development of new drugs
• Feature examples of novel and innovative technologies that create value and enables greater sustainability performance.
• Examples of development and implementation of greener technologies by members of Pharma external supply chain; CROs/CMOs.

Organizers: Sylvain Caillol, Institut Charles Gerhardt Montpellier; Vincent Ladmiral; Dean Webster

Sustainability is one of the most discussed issues in the industry. In the past, paint and coatings industry focused research and development efforts to develop low VOC technologies for paints, binders and sealants. However, meeting environmental regulations is not enough. Nowadays, companies are looking at “green” coatings and sustainability from a holistic standpoint.

The use of water as a continuous phase has already several advantages, as it is an innocuous and nonflammable solvent. Moreover, it reduces the reaction medium viscosity and improves heat transfer enabling easier reaction temperature control. Aqueous polymerization in dispersed media includes several related processes such as emulsion polymerization, miniemulsion polymerization, microemulsion polymerization, dispersion polymerization and suspension polymerization.

The desire and need for more sustainable and more energy efficient materials have encouraged the use of more bio-based and safer chemicals. Hence, numerous bio-based emulsion polymers have been developed from vegetable oils or sugar derivatives to yield bio-based latex. Moreover, most emulsion polymers are prepared from relatively harmful monomers such as acrylates, styrene or isocyanates. Hence, crucial challenges such as the substitution of styrene and other harmful petro-based acrylates remain. Additionally, some toxic surfactants or additives could leach out of the final coatings. Hence the substitution or replacement of these surfactants is still important. Finally, functional coatings which avoids the superposition of several coatings for same properties is also an economic and environmental advantage. Developing greener coatings is certainly important, but companies are also concerned with the reduction of waste and the carbon footprint.

We propose to gather the highest-level contributions from the academic and industrial communities on these remaining challenges.

The objective is to address issues and gaps concerning:

• Innovative and promising bio-based monomers for industrial polymers;
• Reactivity and molar mass issues in emulsion polymerization;
• Reactive latex and cross-linkable coatings;
• Functional and self-healing coatings;
• Biobased surfactants and pickering emulsions;
• Emulsion NIPUs;
• Life cycle assessment of latex;
• Up-scaling issues;
• Characterizations and applications for biobased latex.

Organizers: Tim Braden, Research Scientist, Lilly; Tony Didomenico, Abbvie; Paul Richardson, Pfizer

Despite the exponential growth of research into continuous manufacturing techniques, the production of specialty chemicals and specifically pharmaceuticals is still largely dependent on batch processes. However, sustainability and logistical considerations suggests that this trend is slowly changing, though several technical hurdles still exist in transitioning to a continuous process.  This session on Flow Chemistry and Continuous Manufacturing provides an opportunity to see a number of the field’s current leading practitioners from academia and industry presenting their research, with a focus on providing solutions that enable a seamless transition of a chemical process from batch to flow.