Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 08/05/2005
This is the weekly bulletin of the TURI Library, reporting a selection of recently published titles we have acquired. Our pledge is to keep the bulletin relevant to your work and brief -- no more than 10 titles (usually). You are
welcome to send a message to jan@turi.org if you would like more
information on any of the articles listed here.
Titles here, abstracts below them:
- The Hunt for the Last Newspaper. August 2005
- Regulations are Changing Biocides. June 2005
- Green Solvents for Sustainable Organic Synthesis: State
of the Art. May 2005
- New Cost Tool Helps Fleet Managers Evaluate Hybrid
Vehicles. August 2005
- Nanotoxicology: An Emerging Discipline Evolving from Studies of Ultrafine Particles. July 2005
1. The Hunt for the Last Newspaper
AUTHOR Berman, A.S.
DATE 2005
SOURCE Presstime, August 2005, p39
ABSTRACT From North Carolina to
In April,
Electronic ink usually consists of a thin
plastic sheet made up of tiny capsules, each containing one or more beads
suspended in clear fluid. One side of each bead is black, the other white, with
each side carrying an opposing electrical charge. When either a negative or
positive electric field is applied to a bead by an underlying circuit board, or
backplane, its white side or black side will be visible on the sheet's surface.
With controlled application of these fields via the backplane, words and images
can be formed on the sheet's surface. An estimated 100,000 beads per 8 1/2-by-11-inch
page would be required to produce a reasonable clarity of image.
2. Regulations are Changing Biocides
AUTHOR Lerner, Ivan
DATE 2005
SOURCE Chemical Market Reporter, v267 n25, June 20, 2005,
p32
ABSTRACT If necessity is the mother of invention, then
the European Biocidal Product Directive (BPD) has forced biocides producers to
be inventive. Introduced in 2000—and expected to be fully implemented by
2010—the BPD’s key purpose is to review the active ingredients of formulated
biocidal products. To date, a number of active ingredients have already been
removed from the marketplace because of the BPD. “The number of biocides
supported for the BPD represents roughly one-third of the total number
available to paint and coatings companies 10 years ago,” says Donald Shaw, Troy
Corp.’s vice president of development.
“With the regulatory environment the way it is
today, particularly in the US and especially in Europe with its BPD, what we’re
being forced to do in this industry as we look for new ways to solve microbial
problems is to go back to established biocides with good solid registrations
and work on new ways to apply those biocides to solve more stubborn problems,”
says Mark Henning, president and CEO of Angus Chemical Company, and the general
manager of Dow Biocides. At the beginning of the month, Dow Biocides introduced
benzisothiazolinone (BIT) to its product portfolio. “BIT is a new molecule for
Dow Biocides’ portfolio, although it is a well-established molecule for the
biocides industry,” adds Henning. “It has been used for quite a long time in
paints and coatings as an in-can preservative and in metal-working fluids as an
antimicrobial agent. It is very well established, has good registration and an
excellent toxicity profile.”
3. Green solvents for sustainable organic synthesis: state
of the art
AUTHOR Sheldon, Roger A.
DATE 2005
SOURCE Green Chemistry, v7 n5, May 2005, pp267-278
ABSTRACT The growing awareness of the pressing need for
greener, more sustainable technologies has focused attention on the use of atom
efficient catalytic methodologies for the manufacture of fine chemicals and
pharmaceuticals. Another aspect which is receiving increasing attention is the
use of alternative reaction media that circumvent the problems associated with
many of the traditional volatile organic solvents. The use of nonconventional
reaction media also provides opportunities for facilitating the recovery and
recycling of the catalyst. The state of the art in the use of alternative
reaction media for green, sustainable organic synthesis is reviewed.
Liquid–liquid biphasic catalysis provides an industrially attractive method for
the recovery and recycling of catalysts as an alternative to the more
traditional solid heterogeneous catalysts. Various approaches to liquid–liquid
biphasic catalysis—aqueous biphasic, fluorous biphasic, supercritical carbon
dioxide, ionic liquids and various combinations thereof—are reviewed and
compared. “The best solvent is no solvent” but if a solvent is needed then
water has a lot to recommend it and catalysis in aqueous biphasic systems is an
industrially attractive methodology which has found broad application. Similarly,
supercritical carbon dioxide is an interesting reaction medium in the context
of green chemistry and catalysis in various mono- and biphasic systems
involving this solvent are reviewed. Fluorous biphasic systems and ionic
liquids also have advantages in certain situations and the advantages and
limitations of these media are compared.
The ultimate in clean catalytic
technologies is to telescope multistep syntheses into one-pot in the form of
catalytic cascade processes. Examples of such catalytic cascades involving both
chemo- and biocatalytic conversions are presented. Biocatalysis has a distinct
advantage in this context in that the reactions all take place at or close to
ambient temperature and pressure. In emulation of natural processes, where
several different enzymes are compartmentalised in the cell, it can be
advantageous to immobilise the various catalysts in such a cascade process. In
this context, a novel and effective method for the immobilisation of enzymes as
cross-linked enzyme aggregates (CLEAs) is discussed and the use of a combi
CLEA, containing two enzymes, for the one-pot conversion of benzaldehyde to
S-mandelic acid is reported.
4. New Cost Tool Helps Fleet Managers Evaluate Hybrid
Vehicles
DATE 2005
ABSTRACT A new software tool that compares the costs and
emissions of hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) to conventional vehicles is now
available for government and business fleet managers interested in reducing
fuel costs and protecting air quality. The tool, called the Hybrid Electric
Vehicle Fleet Cost and Benefits Calculator Tool, was developed by the U.S.
Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the
Center for a New American Dream, and the American Council for an Energy
Efficient Economy (ACEEE) with funding from DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency
and Renewable Energy's Clean Cities activity. It is available for free at
www.eere.energy.gov/cleancities/hev/cost_calc.html or www.newdream.org/hev/.
While the retail price of HEVs can exceed that of their conventional
counterparts by several thousand dollars, they can save money when the total
cost of vehicle ownership is considered. Federal and state tax incentives can
help offset the financial impact for taxable entities, and higher resale
values, strong warranties and lower fuel costs can reduce cost of ownership.
HEVs also are easier on the environment because they produce fewer emissions
and get better fuel economy than conventional vehicles. "The cost
calculator tool confirms that in most cases the higher purchase price of a
hybrid is offset by fuel savings and better resale values, yet the greatest
advantage of such vehicles remains the lessening of global warming gases and a
reduction of our nation's addiction to oil," said Betsy Taylor, president,
Center for a New American Dream.
5. Nanotoxicology: An Emerging Discipline Evolving from
Studies of Ultrafine Particles
AUTHOR Oberdorster, Gunter; Oberdorster, Eva; Oberdorster, Jan
DATE 2005
SOURCE Environmental Health Perspectives, v113 n7, July
2005, pp823-839
ABSTRACT Although
humans have been exposed to airborne nanosized particles (NSPs; < 100 nm) throughout
their evolutionary stages, such exposure has increased dramatically over the
last century due to anthropogenic sources. The rapidly developing field of
nanotechnology is likely to become yet another source through inhalation,
ingestion, skin uptake, and injection of engineered nanomaterials. Information
about safety and potential hazards is urgently needed. Results of older
biokinetic studies with NSPs and newer epidemiologic and toxicologic studies
with airborne ultrafine particles can be viewed as the basis for the expanding
field of nanotoxicology, which can be defined as safety evaluation of
engineered nanostructures and nanodevices.
Collectively, some emerging concepts
of nanotoxicology can be identified from the results of these studies. When
inhaled, specific sizes of NSPs are efficiently deposited by diffusional
mechanisms in all regions of the respiratory tract. The small size facilitates
uptake into cells and transcytosis across epithelial and endothelial cells into
the blood and lymph circulation to reach potentially sensitive target sites
such as bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen, and heart. Access to the central
nervous system and ganglia via translocation along axons and dendrites of
neurons has also been observed. NSPs penetrating the skin distribute via uptake
into lymphatic channels. Endocytosis and biokinetics are largely dependent on
NSP surface chemistry (coating) and in vivo surface modifications. The greater
surface area per mass compared with larger-sized particles of the same
chemistry renders NSPs more active biologically. This activity includes a
potential for inflammatory and pro-oxidant, but also antioxidant, activity,
which can explain early findings showing mixed results in terms of toxicity of
NSPs to environmentally relevant species. Evidence of mitochondrial
distribution and oxidative stress response after NSP endocytosis points to a
need for basic research on their interactions with subcellular structures.
Additional considerations for assessing safety of engineered NSPs include
careful selections of appropriate and relevant doses/concentrations, the
likelihood of increased effects in a compromised organism, and also the
benefits of possible desirable effects. An interdisciplinary team approach
(e.g., toxicology, materials science, medicine, molecular biology, and
bioinformatics, to name a few) is mandatory for nanotoxicology research to
arrive at an appropriate risk assessment.
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