The need for government funding for green chemistry in the USA

Green Chemistry and engineering refers to the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances, while keeping economic, as well as environmental, viability in mind. By virtue of more efficient use of raw materials and energy, products and processes that follow green chemistry principles are inherently more profitable and, thus, green chemistry and engineering are vital to the future of the U.S. chemical industry. An excellent example is the redesign of the sertraline process by Pfizer, an innovative technology that earned Pfizer a 2002 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award. Sertraline is the active ingredient in the antidepressant drug Zoloft, which had global sales around $2.4 billion in 2001. Through fundamental process changes, Pfizer eliminated 440 metric tons of titanium dioxide wastes, 150 metric tons of 35% hydrochloric acid, and 100 metric tons of sodium hydroxide per year. Solvent usage was reduced from 60,000 gallons to 6,000 gallons per ton of sertraline produced. By implementing green chemistry principles, Pfizer has doubled overall yield, decreased raw material, energy, and water usage, and increased profitability.

The adoption of green chemistry and engineering technologies by industry is dependent upon advances in basic research. While some of this work is being performed in industry, significant contributions have been made by academia. Thus, government funding for green chemistry and engineering research is vital to the development of cleaner, safer and more profitable technologies. However, government funding for green chemistry and engineering research in the United States has been rather limited.

The primary mechanism for funding green chemistry and engineering research has been the NSF/EPA Technology for a Sustainable Environment (TSE) program. This program has awarded $45.8 million over six competitions since 1995. Projects have focused on a wide variety of research topics, such as less harmful solvents (e.g., water, supercritical CO₂), biocatalysis, use of renewable feedstocks, process modeling and optimization, and life cycle assessment. The TSE program has been extremely successful in eliciting green chemistry and engineering proposals. As a result, funding success rates have been as low as 7%. This low success rate may well discourage good researchers from even applying to this program. The TSE program has been combined with the New Technologies for the Environment program into the new 2003 Environmental Technologies and Systems solicitation, which seeks proposals on fundamental and applied research in the physical and biological sciences and engineering that will lead to environmentally-benign methods for industrial processing/manufacturing; sustainable construction processes; and new science and technologies for pollution sensing and remediation. Since the overall program funding is just $9.5 million, and green chemistry and engineering is just one part of the solicitation, this cannot be considered a serious commitment to federal funding for green chemistry and engineering research.

Projects that could be classified as green chemistry and engineering are certainly funded by a number of other federal agencies, including DOE, DoD, and USDA. The DOE catalysis program, for example, promotes catalysis for green manufacturing technologies and the development of basic science for making new materials and processes for upgrading biobased feedstocks in terms of carbon management. The DoD sponsors a thin films coating program that supports research to eliminate VOCs and heavy metals from coatings. Through its Quality and Utilization of Agricultural Products program, the USDA seeks to promote new processes and new uses of bio-based materials, such as nutriceuticals, pharmaceuticals and biopesticides. Pockets of research funding within government agencies are important in engaging a broad constituency but are no substitute for a large-scale program focused on green chemistry and engineering research.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that government programs not specifically targeted at green chemistry and engineering or components thereof have, in some cases, actively discouraged proposals that identify themselves as green chemistry or green engineering. There appears to be a perception that the TSE program or programs from other agencies, such as those described above, that specifically solicit this type of research, should be sufficient to support all green chemistry or engineering research. Thus, it is difficult to identify any significant number of grants from, for instance, regular NSF programs, that might be considered green chemistry or green engineering research.

Because some green chemistry and engineering technologies are funded through several government programs, it is challenging to quantify the exact amount of funding that is given for this type of research. Nonetheless, it is clear that funding for green chemistry and engineering still remains a very small part of overall R&D funding. For instance, the TSE program has averaged only $5.7 million/year, in comparison to the overall NSF annual budget of $4.8 billion (fiscal year 2002), or the NSF Chemistry Division overall budget of about $150 million. Thus, NSF funding for green chemistry and engineering amounts to only 0.12% of the overall NSF budget and, by comparison, is just 3.8% of what is spent by the Chemistry Division. Even assuming that green chemistry and engineering funding through other agencies is ten times that of the TSE budget, this still pales in comparison with the overall federal spending on research and development of more than $100 billion annually. Considering the importance of green chemistry and engineering to the future of the U.S. chemical industry, the current government investment in this field can only be classified as appalling.

It is imperative that government funding for green chemistry and engineering be transformed from its current pilot program status to true investment in the nation’s future. A multifaceted approach is needed to implement a comprehensive program. All government funding agencies should work to incorporate programs and incentives for green chemistry and engineering in their portfolio. For some agencies, this will mean dramatically increased funding for programs specifically targeted for green chemistry and engineering. For others, this may mean designing new programs. NIH, for example, has a vested interest in the development of greener technologies that will minimize the use and production of toxic materials, thereby safeguarding human health. Green chemistry and engineering should also play an important role in the new U.S. Department of Homeland Security. By eliminating the use of hazardous materials in chemical plants, these facilities could then no longer be used as potential weapons by terrorists. Another mechanism to promote green chemistry and engineering would be to add new criteria to proposal evaluation that requires all researchers to be cognizant of the environmental impact of their work. At all agencies, incentives must be provided for program directors to fund green chemistry and engineering research in ways that do not negatively impact other programs. Furthermore, proposal reviewers with an understanding of green chemistry and engineering must be actively recruited to review proposals with a strong green chemistry and engineering emphasis.

In summary, there seems to be growing awareness in both academic and industrial scientific and engineering communities of the importance and benefits of green chemistry and engineering. In its 10-Year Outlook report on Complex Environmental Systems, NSF states that ‘Chemical synthesis and manufacturing processes (must) design in rather than just add on environmentally sound technology.’ However, the U.S. government investment in green chemistry and engineering does not seem to match the rhetoric. We call on all federal agencies to significantly increase their investment in green chemistry and engineering research in order to ensure a safe, sustainable, and secure future for our nation.

Joan F. Brennecke is Keating-Crawford Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Mary M. Kirchhoff is Assistant Director at the Green Chemistry Institute (American Chemical Society).

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