Petroleum-derived chemicals are intrinsic to virtually every product in today’s society, from the medicines we take to the agrochemicals that produce our food and the plastics that encase our mobile devices. As pressure mounts to reduce the world’s fossil fuel consumption, developing greener manufacturing processes that use less energy and produce less waste is becoming increasingly urgent.
Petroleum-derived chemicals are intrinsic to virtually every product in today’s society, from the medicines we take to the agrochemicals that produce our food and the plastics that encase our mobile devices. As pressure mounts to reduce the world’s fossil fuel consumption, developing greener manufacturing processes that use less energy and produce less waste is becoming increasingly urgent.
At the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Catalysis Research and Innovation (CCRI), more than 30 researchers, led by director Michael Organ, are at the forefront of developing new catalysis technologies he believes will provoke more sustainable chemical reactions to drive industrial sectors from pharmaceuticals to agrochemicals.
Catalysts are molecules that, when paired with one or more chemicals, speed up the reaction that occurs when the combination interacts, without being consumed themselves. Catalysis is the technology that creates those matches. Green catalysis involves the search for new catalysts, as well as fresh combinations of chemicals to produce reactions at lower temperatures, with fewer unwanted by-products and less energy consumption.
Researchers in chemistry, chemical engineering and medicine are investigating the best ways to reduce our dependence on petrochemicals, from using catalysts to transform feedstocks and other kinds of biomass materials into chemical building blocks, to transforming renewable plant oils and wood by-products into specialty molecular products.
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Photo via University of Ottawa.
