Page 187 - CW E-Magazine (14-11-2023)

Special Report

2023 Green Chemistry Challenge Award Winners

he U.S. Environmental Protec-
tion Agency (EPA) announced
Tthe winners of the 2023 Green
Chemistry Challenge Awards for new
and innovative green chemistry techno-
logies. Through the design of chemi-
cal products and processes that reduce
or eliminate the generation and use of
hazardous substances, this year’s win-
ners have developed solutions to signi-
fi cant environmental challenges such as
climate change and spur innovation and
economic development.

“All of us benefi t from advances in
green chemistry as part of prevention
pollution in communities, especially fuels – all without emissions or waste. facing the chemical industry, Solugen
where residents continue to suffer from A highly scalable and localized alter- has pioneered Bioforge, a cell-free chemo-
disproportionate levels of pollution,” native to conventional chemical manu- enzymatic manufacturing process com-
said EPA Offi ce of Chemical Safety and facturing processes, the Bioforge can prising a series of three primary ope-
Pollution Prevention Deputy Assistant produce a range of high-performance, rations: a cell-free enzymatic reactor, a
Administrator, Jennie Romer. “Green cost-competitive, and sustainable solu- metal reactor, and an evaporator. This
chemistry can play a vital role in pro- tions to meet the diverse needs of a fi rst-of-its-kind platform combines the
tecting human health and the environ- wide range of markets including water process safety and complex synthesis
ment by increasing effi ciency, avoiding treatment applications and detergents. capabilities of fermentative routes with
hazardous chemicals and preventing An independent life cycle analysis indi- the high productivity, selectivity, and
waste while improving the competitive cates that this fi rst-of-a-kind manu- pH tolerance of gold catalysts.
ness of American companies.” facturing platform eliminates over
20,000,000 lbs of hazardous chemicals Solugen decouples enzyme produc-
An independent panel of technical and mitigates over 35,000-tpa of CO tion from enzyme reactions, allowing
2
experts convened by the American equivalences (CO e) compared to tradi- enzymes to operate at a range of tem-
2
Chemical Society Green Chemistry tional facilities. peratures, at neutral pH, and with more
Institute formally judged the 2023 sub- productivity than fermentation, where
missions and made recommendations summary of Technology conditions are limited by the require-
to EPA. Meeting the environmental goals of ments of living microbes. The gold
a clean chemistry future requires deve- nanoparticle catalysis developed by
Greener synthetic Pathways loping effi cient technologies to convert Solugen provides more than 90%
Award molecules derived from renewable carbon yield and selectivity.
feedstocks and renewable energy into
solugen: Decarbonizing the useful products. Current methods of For the fi nal evaporation step,
physical world producing bio-based chemicals rely on Solugen replaced the traditional natu-
fermentation processes or heterogenous ral gas-powered steam evaporator with
Solugen is being recognized for deve- metal catalysis, which both suffer from mechanical vapor recompression tech-
loping the Bioforge, a unique manu- wasted feedstock due to carbon yield nology, which is powered exclusively
facturing platform that uses a chemi- losses and require complex, energy- by wind energy. This chemoenzymatic
cal process to convert plant-derived intensive downstream processing. process is now being used to produce
substances into essential materials that a variety of different chemicals; com-
have historically been made from fossil To tackle this fundamental issue pared to incumbent technologies, this

Chemical Weekly November 14, 2023 187

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