Greenlist(tm) Bulletin 08/19/2005
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. 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:
- Better Bonding with Beans. August 2005
- Investigating the Possible Health Hazards of
Nanoparticles. July 2005
- EU's Volatile Organic Compound Emissions Directive and
the Switch to Silicones. May 2005
- Korea
to Ban Phthalates in Toys. August 2005
- The Clock is Ticking. June 2005
1. Better Bonding with Beans
AUTHOR Brown, Valerie J.
DATE 2005
SOURCE Environmental Health Perspectives, v113 n8, August
2005, ppA539-541
ABSTRACT Formaldehyde is an extremely useful industrial
chemical but also one that has long been known to cause environmental health
problems in some circumstances. A major route for human exposure is inhalation
of formaldehyde gas emitted from urea- and phenol-formaldehyde resins used as
adhesives in engineered woods such as plywood and particleboard. Industrial
workers are exposed to significantly higher amounts of formaldehyde than the
general public, although residents of new homes built with engineered wood
materials often experience symptoms, especially soon after moving in.
Formaldehyde concentrates in indoor air, with known and suspected human health
effects ranging from eye irritation to cancer. Now a new adhesive using soy
protein, processed to resemble the protein that allows mussels to cling to
rocks, is enabling some manufacturers to make formaldehyde-free engineered
woods. Developed by Kaichang Li, an associate professor in the wood science and
engineering department at Oregon State
University in Corvallis,
the soy adhesive is being hailed by many as a nontoxic, economically
attractive, and renewable solution to a long-standing environmental health
issue. Li’s new soy adhesive is an ingenious chemical construct, something of a
Holy Grail in the search to make vegetable proteins that are strong enough and
water-resistant enough to hold up in industrial applications. In a report
published in the September 2002 issue of Macromolecular Rapid Communications,
Li noted the fine complementarity between the features of marine adhesive
proteins (like those that make clinging mussels such a threat to boat hulls)
and soy proteins. Marine adhesive proteins stick to wet and irregular surfaces,
bind very strongly, and degrade very little, but are burdensome and costly to
synthesize; soy proteins are abundant, renewable, and affordable, but are
relatively weak and easily degraded. Li was able to get the best of both worlds
by coaxing soy protein to cross-link with the adhesive’s second major
ingredient— a proprietary resin known as kymene—in a similar manner to mussel
adhesive. Cross-linking organizes large molecules into a mesh-like
configuration. In Li’s soy adhesive, this occurs after the glue is applied to
the wood, during curing (the chemical and physical process by which ingredients
are united into a stable form). The cross-links in Li’s adhesive are so strong
that it can be boiled for hours without degrading, he says.
2. Investigating the Possible Health Hazards of
Nanoparticles
DATE 2005
SOURCE Chemical Engineering, v112, n7, July 2005, p17
ABSTRACT Establsihing processes to detect, track and
characterize nanoparticles is the key goal of a European research project. With
scientists from industry, startup firms and research institutions from seven EU
countries, the 23 partners in the project will look at the entire lifecycle of
nanoparticles, from their production and storage through transport and use in
final products.
3. EU's Volatile Organic Compound Emissions Directive and
the Switch to Silicones
AUTHOR Reinders, Roger; Gubbels, Frederic; Dandois,
Robert
DATE 2005
SOURCE Global SMT & Packaging, v5 n5, May 2005, pp10-13, 18
ABSTRACT Within our industrial society increased
attention is devoted to pollution prevention. This article focuses on the
Volatile Organic Compound Emissions Directive (1999/13/EC), and discusses what
that document means for European companies consuming conformal coatings and
solder fluxes. The article offers a calculation tool and example calculations
that can determine whether or not a manufacturing plant that is using conformal
coatings is in line with the Volatile Organic Compound Emissions Directive.
Also, practical and effective solutions to comply with the directive are
discussed.
4. Korea
to Ban Phthalates in Toys
AUTHOR Young, Ian
DATE 2005
SOURCE Chemical Week, v167 n25, August 3, 2005, p15
ABSTRACT The Korean government says it intends to ban the
use of phthalate plasticizers in toys and other children's products, on safety
grounds. The ban would start next year, according to the Korean Agency for
Technology and Standards (Seoul), a
state-run body.
5. The Clock is Ticking
AUTHOR Carbone, James
DATE 2005
SOURCE Purchasing, June 16, 2005, p28
ABSTRACT Time is running out for electronics companies to
meet European Union's ban on the use of lead and five other hazardous substances
in equipment sold in Europe. The Restriction on the Use
of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) law requires that beginning in July 2006
electronics equipment sold in Europe, with some exceptions, must be free of
lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, polybrominated biphenyls, and polybrominated
diphenyl ethers. The ban is having a huge impact on the electronics industry
and on purchasers at OEM and electronics manufacturing services (EMS)
providers. Companies are substituting parts and changing manufacturing
processes and buyers are monitoring which suppliers are making RoHS-compliant
parts. By some estimates, only about 25% of electronics suppliers are currently
producing parts that are RoHS compliant. One reason many are not yet compliant
is cost. Companies in the electronics supply chain will spend between $5-10
billion collectively to comply with the legislation, according to industry
analysts. Of the six banned substances, lead is the most widely used in the
electronics industry. It is in solder to connect parts to boards and in the
plating of parts. Companies are spending millions of dollars in finding
lead-free alternatives and manufacturing processes to handle the lead-free
parts. The good news for buyers is that most major semiconductor suppliers have
converted at least some parts to lead-free or are in the process of doing so
and have settled on lead-free alternatives. For instance, with reflow solder,
many suppliers plan to use silver-tin copper rather than tin lead, although
there are a host of other alternatives including tin bismuth, indium silver and
tin zinc among others. In semiconductors, lead has been used in a compound for
lead frames, package leads and printed-circuitboard tabs. Some chip companies
like Samsung will use a lead-free compound of tin bismuth and silver. Texas
Instruments is using nickel-palladium gold finish in its leadframes for logic
parts. With connectors, many manufacturers are using tin-over-nickel plating
rather than lead-based plating.
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information on any of these resources. Also, please tell us what topics you are particularly
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