UT to establish new School for Green Chemistry and Engineering

July 11, 2011 | News, UToday
By Meghan Cunningham



The University of Toledo is building on its expertise in alternative energy and sustainability with a new school specializing in the field of green chemistry and engineering and is honored to have scientific leaders with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Science Foundation visit campus in conjunction with the announcement.

UT will announce the creation of a new School for Green Chemistry and Engineering at an event beginning at 6 p.m. Monday, July 11, in Libbey Hall. The new school will focus on the need for sustainability with the design of products and processes from origin through end of life that use renewable raw materials and environmentally safe processes.

Green chemistry and biomimicry, which is green chemistry and engineering that uses natural raw materials and processes that mimic nature and produce zero waste, are the future of science, and the University is positioning itself to be a leader in teaching, researching and applying this science, UT President Lloyd A. Jacobs said.

Anastas

Anastas

“What we do now and in the future will have serious consequences to our health and environment, and it is important that we look at our current processes to reconfigure them to be more efficient or create new ones all together that are more sustainable and less harmful,” Jacobs said.

Dr. Paul Anastas, who is known as the “father of green chemistry” and serves as the EPA’s assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development and science adviser, and Dr. Matthew Platz, director of the Division of Chemistry for the National Science Foundation, will be the University’s guests in conjunction with the announcement, as well as Dr. Robert Peoples, director of the Green Chemistry Institute headquartered at the American Chemical Society, who will give remarks at the event.

Anastas, who is on leave from Yale University where he is the inaugural Teresa and H. John Heinz III Professor in the Practice of Chemistry for the Environment and director of the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering, is widely recognized for his research in the design of safer chemicals, bio-based polymers and new methodologies of chemical synthesis that are more efficient and less hazardous to the environment. In addition to his work with the EPA, Anastas served as assistant director for the environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Platz

Platz

Platz, who also is a Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry at Ohio State University, is an experienced physical organic chemist respected for his research on the structure and behavior of reactive intermediates, particularly carbenes, nitrenes and reactive oxygen species.

Both will give remarks during their visits to the University. Platz will participate in the Chemistry Colloquium Series and give a talk titled “Ultrafast Time Resolved Studies of Excited States and Reactive Intermediates” at 4 p.m. Monday, July 11. Anastas will give the Frontiers in Chemistry Lecture, “Green Chemistry: Innovation for Sustainability,” at noon Tuesday, July 12. Both will take place in Bowman-Oddy Laboratories Room 1059.

“We are truly honored to have the globally respected scientists Dr. Anastas, Dr. Platz and Dr. Peoples visit The University of Toledo to share their vast knowledge and expertise as we establish the new School for Green Chemistry and Engineering that will position the University as a leader in the emerging science that will benefit our world,” Jacobs said.

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