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Monash academics are developing technology to render chemical processes and engineering projects less damaging to the environment -- and industry is racing to embrace this new approach. Sue McAlister reports.
There's no doubt about it -- 'green' science is hot. So much so that the Faculty of Science's new Green Chemistry Centre, the first in Australia, has been granted more funds from the Australian Research Council than it expected -- a rare occurrence anywhere in these economically straitened times. The head of the Monash-based centre, Professor Colin Raston, says it will receive more than $1.71 million for its first year, then $875,000 guaranteed for each of the following two years.
His colleague and director of the centre, Professor Roy Jackson, says this results from the public perception of chemistry as intrinsically hazardous, "which is not surprising, given disasters such as Bhopal, Chernobyl and this year's cyanide spill into the Danube". "Now," says Professor Raston, "companies including the world's largest chemical producer, DuPont, are trying to change that negative public perception. They've also realised that green chemistry can save them money, through implementing more efficient production processes, and, of course, by avoiding massive environmental damage bills." "This is not a band-aid approach. Ultimately, we want 100 per cent of what goes in to come out as product." An example is polyurethane plastics, which are now widely used because of their fire-retardant properties but whose manufacture currently involves phosgene, a poisonous gas used in World War One. One of the 12 principles of green chemistry (see sidebar) demands the replacement of such potentially hazardous technology, and this is the basis of a current Monash project. Other key projects at the centre involve the replacement of organic solvents by water, supercritical carbon dioxide and ionic liquids, the use of aqueous-based catalyst systems, the use of microwave energy in chemical reactions, new energy- efficient materials and the development of new, appropriate analytical methods. The centre is also leading the charge in teaching green chemistry in Australia, highlighted at a convention in Canberra earlier this year. "This is not a band-aid approach", Professor Raston says. "Ultimately, we want 100 per cent of what goes in to come out as product. And not only in the industrialised world, but also in developing nations, such as China, which want to start up new chemical processes without waste and pollution."
However, the researchers and academics involved were largely unaware of each other's work. Policy-makers recognised the need for some kind of umbrella body, to help coordinate teaching and research on environmental issues across the university's Australian and overseas campuses. So, the faculties of Science, Medicine, Pharmacy, Information Tech-nology, Engineering and Arts established the Monash Environment Institute to provide such coordination, and to "enhance the already strong reputationof the university as a centre of excellence in studies of the environment," says Professor Brisk. Monash even has a formal environment policy. This aims to improve the university's own environmental practice, to monitor and respond to environmental legislation and standards, and to assist environmentally oriented teaching, consultancy and community work. "Indeed," Professor Brisk says, "a key thrust of our engineering syllabus is to teach all our students about the context of engineering in the community -- to make them aware of things such as life cycle assessments, the cost of engineering projects to the community and their environmental impact. We emphasise the importance of recycling, the sustainable use of raw materials and the effective use of energy. This was incorporated into a major redesign of our degree course, so that not just environmental engineers but all engineering students are now exposed to environmental science."
The 12 principles of green chemistry At the forefront Professor Brisk's approach matches that of his Chemistry colleagues when he says his faculty's goal is "not to patch up environmental problems, but to stop problems arising at their source". He says Monash is at the forefront of teaching environmental engineering -- in fact, Australia is well ahead of the United States. This gives Monash-trained engineers a competitive edge both locally and in the international market, especially for projects in Asia, where there is growing concern about environmental damage. "Monash's Malaysia campus is teaching exactly the same engineering syllabus, with its emphasis on the environment, as the campus here in Melbourne," he says. Along with Professors Jackson and Raston, engineers in Professor Brisk's faculty are also involved in a Cooperative Research Centre project to develop cost-effective and environmentally safe ways of using brown coal to produce electricity. Brown coal is a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, so technology which minimised this would give Victoria an edge in exploiting its huge brown coal reserves. It would also benefit developing nations, where the demand for electricity from brown coal will rise in the 21st century.
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