Talk to Focus on Green Chemistry
The Northern West Virginia Section of the American Chemical Society, in conjunction
with the Fairmont State University Department of Biology, Chemistry and Geoscience,
will present a talk titled "Green Chemistry and the Future."
Presented by Dr. Terrence J. Collins, Thomas Lord Professor of Chemistry at Carnegie
Mellon University, the talk is planned for 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, in Room 305 of
the Engineering Technology Building. A social hour will start at 6:30 p.m. Parking
will be available in the parking garage. Tokens for the garage will be available at
the talk.
Collins will be discussing green chemistry, which is the design of chemical products
and processes to reduce or eliminate the use and generation of substances hazardous
to human health and the environment.
The reasons why our civilization needs green chemistry, which began in 1991, will
be set primarily in the historical context of our advancing understanding of the toxicity
and ecotoxicity of synthetic compounds. The requirement to focus on reducing hazardous
substances brings novel intellectually demanding, ethically appealing material to
chemistry education. Green chemists are already providing less toxic and cost effective
approaches to a variety of industrial processes and products, and the opportunity
landscape for researchers is enormous.
Terry Collins is the Thomas Lord Professor of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University
where he directs the Institute for Green Oxidation Chemistry. He is also an Honorary
Professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He taught the first university
course in green chemistry at Carnegie Mellon, starting in 1992. Collins' research
is focused on greening the historically dirty area of oxidation chemistry by designing
nontoxic catalysts for activating the natural oxidants, hydrogen peroxide and oxygen.
His widely patented TAML activators promise to revolutionize peroxide chemistry, allowing
it to substitute more effectively for chlorine- and metal-based processes and to enable
much more effective processes for destroying in water recalcitrant pollutants and
hardy pathogens.