Lancaster, Mike. THE GREEN CHEMISTRY NETWORK AND EXAMPLES FROM UK INDUSTRY OF GREEN CHEMISTRY IN ACTION
Green Chemistry Network, Department of Chemistry, University of York, York YO10 5DD, U.K. (ml13@york.ac.uk)
The Green Chemistry Network promotes the concepts of Green Chemistry in Schools, Universities and Industry. The poster will describe some of the current and future activities of the GCN. In particular some examples from the UK Green Chemistry awards (administered by the GCN) will be used to illustrate the kind of progress being made in the UK towards more sustainable products and processes. Examples will be taken from the reactive dye industry, which produces vast amounts of aqueous salt waste contaminated with 'unfixed' dye. By careful molecular design DyStar have developed more efficient dyes which drastically reduce waste and energy consumption. Similarly the automotive finishing industry is responsible for releasing thousands of tonnes of VOC's into the atmosphere. One solution to this problem, developed by Industrial Copolymers, is the incorporation of reactive diluents to replace large amounts of solvent and polyol in polyurethane finishes.