Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge 2015

Throughout the 19 years of the awards program, EPA has presented awards to 98 winners. Since its inception, in 1996, EPA has received over 1,500 nominations. By recognizing groundbreaking scientific solutions to real-world environmental problems, the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge has significantly reduced the hazards associated with designing, manufacturing, and using chemicals.

Through 2014, our 98 winning technologies have made billions of pounds of progress, including:

• 826 million pounds of hazardous chemicals and solvents eliminated each year—enough to fill almost 3,800 railroad tank cars or a train nearly 47 miles long.
• 21 billion gallons of water saved each year—the amount used by 820,000 people annually.
• 7.8 billion pounds of carbon dioxide equivalents released to air eliminated each year—equal to taking 810,000 automobiles off the road.

These data are from award-winning nominations for the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge. Adding the benefits from the nominated technologies would greatly increase the program’s total benefits.

EPA usually presents one Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award in each award category. For the 2015 competition, there are six award categories:

• Focus Area 1: Greener Synthetic Pathways
• Focus Area 2: Greener Reaction Conditions
• Focus Area 3: The Design of Greener Chemicals
• Small Business* (for a technology in any of the three focus areas developed by a small business)
• Academic (for a technology in any of the three focus areas developed by an academic researcher)
• Specific Environmental Benefit: Climate Change (for a technology in any of the three focus areas that reduces greenhouse gas emissions)

*A small business for purposes of this award must have annual sales of less than $40 million, including all domestic and foreign sales by the company, its subsidiaries, and its parent company.

To be eligible for an award, a nominated technology must meet the scope of the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Program by meeting each of these six criteria:

1. It must be a green chemistry technology with a significant chemistry component
2. It must include source reduction
3. It must be submitted by an eligible organization or its representative(s)
4. It must have a significant milestone in its development within the past five years
5. It must have a significant U.S. component
6. It must fit within at least one of the three focus areas of the program

If you have a question about whether your technology meets the scope of the program, please email us at greenchemistry@epa.gov or call (202) 564-8740.

1. Green chemistry technologies

Green chemistry technologies are extremely diverse. As a group, they…

• Improve upon all chemical products and processes by reducing negative impacts on human health and the environment relative to competing technologies
• Include all chemical processes: synthesis, catalysis, reaction conditions, separations, analysis, and monitoring
• Make incremental improvements at any stage of a chemical’s lifecycle, for example, substituting a greener feedstock, reagent, catalyst, or solvent in an existing synthetic pathway
• May substitute a single improved product or an entire synthetic pathway
• Benefit human health and the environment at any point of the technology’s lifecycle: extraction, synthesis, use, and ultimate fate
• Incorporate green chemistry at the earliest design stages of a new product or process
• Contain a significant amount of chemistry, although they may also incorporate green engineering practices

2. Source reduction

For this program, EPA defines green chemistry as the use of chemistry for source reduction. Chemical technologies that include recycling, treatment, or disposal may meet the scope of the program if they offer source reduction over competing technologies. Read how green chemistry differs from cleaning up pollution (remediation).

3. Eligible organizations

Companies (including academic institutions and other nonprofit organizations) and their representatives are eligible for Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards for outstanding or innovative source reduction technologies.

Public academic institutions, such as state and tribal universities and their representatives, are eligible for Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards for technologies that prevent, reduce, or eliminate air or water pollution or the adverse health effects of solid waste entering into the waste stream.

4. Significant milestone

A green chemistry technology must have reached a significant milestone within the past five years. Some examples are: critical discovery made, results published, patent application submitted or approved, pilot plant constructed, and relevant regulatory review (e.g., by EPA under TSCA, FIFRA, or CAA; by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under FFDCA) initiated or completed, and technology implemented or launched commercially.

5. Significant U.S. component

A significant amount of the research, development, or other aspects of the technology must have occurred within the United States. If the only aspect of the technology within the United States is product sales, the technology may not meet the scope of the program.

6. Focus areas of the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge

Green chemistry technologies fit into at least one of the three focus areas below. Technologies that do not fit within at least one focus area may not fall within the scope of the program.

Focus Area 1: Greener Synthetic Pathways

This focus area involves designing and implementing a novel, green pathway to produce a new or existing chemical substance.

Examples include synthetic pathways that:

• Use greener feedstocks that are innocuous or renewable (e.g., biomass, triglycerides)
• Use novel reagents or catalysts, including biocatalysts and microorganisms
• Use natural processes, such as fermentation or biomimetic syntheses
• Are atom-economical
• Are convergent syntheses

Focus Area 2: Greener Reaction Conditions

This focus area involves improving conditions other than the overall design or redesign of a synthesis. Greener analytical methods often fall within this focus area.

Examples include reaction conditions that:

• Replace hazardous solvents with solvents that have less impact on human health and the environment
• Use solventless reaction conditions and solid-state reactions
• Use novel processing methods that prevent pollution at its source
• Eliminate energy- or material-intensive separation and purification steps
• Improve energy efficiency, including reactions running closer to ambient conditions
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Focus Area 3: The Design of Greener Chemicals

This focus area involves designing and implementing chemical products that replace more hazardous products.

Examples include chemical products that are:

• Less toxic than current products
• Inherently safer because they reduce the likelihood or severity of accidents
• Recyclable or biodegradable after use
• Safer for the atmosphere (e.g., do not deplete ozone, form smog, or contribute to climate change)

Nominated chemistry technologies that meet the scope of the program will be judged on how well they meet the following three selection criteria:

A. Science and innovation

The nominated chemistry technology should be innovative and of scientific merit.

The technology should be, for example:

• Original (i.e., never employed before) and
• Scientifically valid, that is, can the nominated technology or strategy stand up to scientific scrutiny through peer review? Does the nomination contain enough chemical detail to reinforce or prove its scientific validity? Has the mechanism of action been clarified via scientific research?

B. Human health and environmental benefits

The nominated chemistry technology should offer human health and/or environmental benefits at some point in its lifecycle from resource extraction to ultimate disposal. Quantitative statements of benefits are more useful to the judges than are qualitative ones.

The technology might, for example:

• Reduce toxicity (acute or chronic) or the potential for illness or injury to humans, animals, or plants
• Reduce flammability or explosion potential
• Reduce the use or generation of hazardous substances, the transport of hazardous substances, or their releases to air, water, or land
• Improve the use of natural resources, for example, by substituting a renewable feedstock for a petrochemical feedstock
• Save water or energy
• Reduce the generation of waste, even if the waste is not hazardous

C. Applicability and impact

The nominated chemistry technology should have a significant impact. The technology may be broadly applicable to many chemical processes or industries; alternatively, it may have a large impact on a narrow area of chemistry. Commercial implementation can support the applicability and impact of a technology. Nominations for pre-commercial technologies should discuss the economic feasibility of the technology.

The nominated technology should offer three advantages:

• A practical, cost-effective approach to green chemistry
• A remedy to a real environmental or human health problem
• One or more technical innovations that are readily transferrable to other processes, facilities, or industry sectors