Green Chemistry

1. Green Chemistry By Akrem Abdul

2. What is Green Chemistry? Green chemistry is chemistry for the environment, including the production and use of less hazardous substances. Green chemistry is a creating new methods of thinking and creating, environmentally. Green chemistry was first introduced in the 20th Century and is the combining together of tools, techniques and technologies that enables chemists all over the world to develop more environmental and efficient goods and procedures.

3. What Difference Will Green Chemistry Make? When you’re in walking on the footpath and a truck zooms past and you get a whiff of it’s carbon monoxide fumes, you’ll want green chemistry to be a fundamental part of your life. Green chemistry is all about applying energy efficient, hazard-free, waste-free, efficient chemical processes without surrendering their effectiveness.

4. What’s The Purpose Of Green Chemistry? The purpose of green chemistry is to discover new ways to make the best chemical products and processes that need less reagents, smaller amounts of solvent, and fewer energy to make; also being safer, producing less waste, and increasing productivity. There are 12 principles of green chemistry that industries today work around. These principles were developed to assist reviewing how environmentally benign [harmless] a chemical reaction or process is.

5. Let’s Look Into A Principle:Use Renewable Raw Materials. “[Renewable raw materials] use starting materials that are derived from renewable resources such as plant material rather than those such as from fossil fuels that will eventually run out.” Renewable materials are materials taken from a living tree, plant, animal or ecology which has the ability to redevelop itself. A renewable material can be made multiple times. For example, we use trees to make woodchips and we can plant more trees to replace it. Earth's mineral resources are limited, and filtering and sorting them often requires lots of energy. Renewable materials can be made literally forever, with countless environmental benefits.

6. What materials are we currently using? We burn lots and lots of fossil fuels daily, which means we’re polluting our world more and more by each day. When we burn things like fuel, oil and gas, we release a colossal amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The burning of some of these elements also contributes to the production of sulphur dioxide, a gas that contributes to acid rain, and also quite frankly, it is very dangerous mining for elements like coal. What renewable materials shouldwe use? Solar energy: Solar power is a growing popularity in homes. It is the storage of light energy that comes from the Sun. Hydroelectricity: Energy that is formed from the movement of water, i.e., rivers and oceans. The water movement is used to generate electricity. Vegetation: Corn, sugar cane and the like are used to form ethanol naturally, a chemical that can potentially replace petrol. These are just a few materials, however, there are many more, for example, geothermal power.

7. E thanol FuelThe nvironmental Fuel. Ethanol Fuel [Ethanol] is a one common renewable resource used by many industries such as fuel, alcohol and thermometer industries. Ethanol is the same alcohol used in alcoholic beverages. Ethanol is used as a fuel in some countries as bio-fuel, an alternative to petrol. Ethanol is the product of fermented sugar from sugar canes and/or corn. The production of ethanol will be discussed soon.

8. How Is Ethanol Made? Ethanol is made from the sugar derived from corn. The sugar [glucose] is made by the corn by photosynthesis. • Photosynthesis The vast majority of plants make their own energy, hence they are called autotrophs, from carbon dioxide, water and light. Autotrophs get their carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, their water from humans and rain, and sunlight from the sun. When all these things are present, the plant makes its glucose [a sugar] and oxygen and the water remains with it.

9. How Is Ethanol Made? (Cont.) • Fermentation When the glucose produced is ready to be transformed into energy there needs to be oxygen. If there is no oxygen present, the glucose ferments. When it ferments in the plant (in this case corn or sugar cane) the glucose turns into ethanol. Hence we get our ethanol from plants, a renewable resource. Now that you understand how effective and energy efficient using renewable resources is, it would indeed be wasteful to not utilise it, wouldn’t it?

10. Bibliography • Information http://www.ehow.com/about_4568550_renewable-resources.html [1/7/09] www.greentech.eu/ [1/7/09] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel [1/7/09] http://www.rsc.org/education/teachers/learnnet/green/whatis/home.htm [2/7/09] http://www.caltex.com.au/assets/community/EEO_First_Public_Report.pdf[2/7/09] http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_SUPERARTICLE&node_id=1444&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=045d69cf-0e96-4b50-896a-5a982d05adbb [2&3/7/09] Heinemann Chemistry Units 1 & 2 3rd Edition Nicole Lukins , Carolyn Elvins, PhilippaLohmeyer, Bob Ross, Robert Sanders, Gordon Wilson. Publisher: Malcolm Parsons [2&3/7/09] • Images Google Images: for images relating to my topic [1&2&3/7/09] • Heinemann Biology 2 4th Edition Barbara Evans , Pauline Ladiges, John McKenzie, Philip Batterham, Yvonne Sanders. Publisher: Pearson Heinemann (Australia) [2&3/7/09]