In the preceding chapters, we have provided a summary of various strategies that can be employed by corporations, government agencies, and non-profits to offer products and services of the highest quality without having a negative impact on the environment. In the next decades, it will be extremely critical to be aware of the declining health of the environment and that everything we do should improve its health before it is too late. In addition to employing strategies like those described in the earlier chapters, there may be many others that can be integrated into an organization's operation to accomplish the same goal. Here we summarize three additional strategies.

GREEN CHEMISTRY

Green chemistry is a revolutionary approach to the way that products are made; it is a science that aims to reduce or eliminate the use and/or generation of hazardous substances in the design phase of materials development. It requires an inventive and interdisciplinary view of material and product design. Green chemistry follows the principle that it is better to consider waste prevention options during the design and development phase than to dispose or treat waste after a process or material has been developed. This not only reduces the amount of waste material generated, but also reduces the quantity of feedstock required to manufacture the product.

For a technology to be considered green chemistry, it must accomplish three things:

• It must be more environmentally benign than existing alternatives.
• It must be more economically viable than existing alternatives.
• It must be functionally equivalent to or outperform existing alternatives.

Green chemistry presents industries with incredible opportunity for growth and competitive advantage. This is because there is currently a significant shortage of green technologies: it is estimated that only 10% of current technologies are environmentally benign; another 25% could be made benign relatively easily [1]. The remaining 65% have yet to be invented! Green chemistry also creates cost savings: when hazardous materials are removed from materials and processes, all hazard-related costs are also removed, such as those associated with handling, transportation, disposal, and compliance.

Through green chemistry, environmentally benign alternatives to current materials and technologies can be systematically introduced across all types of manufacturing to promote a more environmentally and economically sustainable future.

In 2007, John Warner and Jim Babcock partnered to found the first company completely dedicated to developing green chemistry technologies, the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry. The Institute was created with the mission to develop nontoxic, environmentally benign, and sustainable technological solutions for society.

The institute works with corporations to find a more sustainable process for the manufacture of chemical products. The methodology by which the institute develops these processes is based on 12 principles:

1. Pollution prevention—It is better to prevent waste than to treat and clean up waste after it is formed.
2. Atom economy—Synthetic methods should be designed to maximize the incorporation of all materials used in the process into the final product.
3. Less hazardous synthesis—Whenever practicable, synthetic methodologies should be designed to use and generate substances that possess little or no toxicity to human health and the environment.
4. Design safer chemicals—Chemical products should be designed to preserve efficacy of the function while reducing toxicity.
5. Safer solvents and auxiliaries—The use of auxiliary substances (solvents, separations agents, etc.) should be made unnecessary whenever possible and, when used, innocuous.
6. Design for energy efficiency—Energy requirements should be recognized for their environmental and economic impacts and should be minimized. Synthetic methods should be conducted to ambient temperature and pressure.
7. Use of renewable feedstocks—A raw material or feedstock should be renewable rather than depleting whenever technically and economically practical.
8. Reduce derivatives—Unnecessary production of derivatives (blocking group, protection/deprotection, temporary modification of physical/chemical processes) should be avoided whenever possible.
9. Catalysis—Catalytic reagents (as selective as possible) are superior to stoichiometric reagents.
10. Design for degradation—Chemical products should be designed so that at the end of their function they do not persist in the environment and instead breakdown into innocuous degradation products.
11. Real-time analysis for pollution prevention—Analytical methodologies need to be further developed to allow for real-time in-process monitoring and control prior to the formation of hazardous substances.
12. Inherently safer chemistry for accident prevention—Substance and the form of a substance used in a chemical process should be chosen so as to minimize the potential for chemical accidents, including releases, explosions, and fires.

When working in the various industry sectors, the approach to green chemistry may vary slightly. For example, here are some of the approaches taken for the following industry sectors:

• Energy, natural resources, and environment—Novel photon to chemical energy mechanisms may be used for the generation or storage of energy. Alternative fuels may be developed from renewable feedstocks and intermediates. Diverse approaches may be used for the sustainable reclamation and/or purification of water.
• Industrial chemicals and materials—When attempting to manufacture a specific product, there may be different approaches to achieve the ultimate chemical product. Here is where one must look at alternative feedstocks that are more sustainable and economic.
• Industrial products—It is important for the products to be void of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as well as other chemical coatings that are prohibited by new regulations.
• Pharmaceuticals and biotechnology—New methods are sought in order to reduce the non-active compounds in a particular product while developing new synthetic methods for the active ingredient.
• Personal care and cosmetics—Must develop new materials and application mechanisms that avoid VOCs and other potentially harmful materials to the skin, hair, and nail products.
• Retail, consumer, supply chain—Must assess the entire supply chain to be sure the materials used in the manufacture of products are sustainable and meet current and potentially future regulations.

An example of applying green chemistry to a pharmaceutical product is the synthesis of ibuprofen [2]. Ibuprofen is the active ingredient in many analgesic and inflammatory drugs such as Advil, Motrin, and Medipren. Beginning in the 1960s, ibuprofen was produced by a six-step synthesis with an atom economy of only 40%. This meant that less than half (40%) of the weight of all the atoms of the reactants were incorporated in the ibuprofen, and 60% were wasted in the formation of unwanted by-products. The annual production of approximately 30 million pounds of ibuprofen by this method resulted in over 40 million pounds of waste. But during the 1990s, the BHC Company developed a new synthesis of ibuprofen with an atom economy of 77–99%. This synthesis not only produces much less waste, it is also only a three-step process. A pharmaceutical company can thus produce more ibuprofen in less time and with less energy, which results in increased profits.

In another example, the shoe company Nike identified five chemicals in its original shoe rubber that were hazardous and worked diligently to eliminate these chemicals [3]. In the original rubber, those five toxic chemicals made up 12% of the product by weight. The “green rubber” that Nike eventually created by applying green chemistry has only one of the five chemicals in it, and that chemical makes up only 1% of the product by weight. That reduced the toxic composition by 96%, or 3000 metric tons/year.

The company was also successful in reducing zinc in its shoes. Using zinc meant emitting 340 g of VOCs for every pair of shoes during the manufacturing process. But Nike engineers discovered the zinc wasn't really that essential to the shoes. They were able to remove 80–90% of the zinc in the shoe manufacturing process—reducing toxic emissions from 340 g per pair in 1995 to 15 g in 2006. This is a huge difference that would never be noticed by the consumer, but would be noticed by the workers in the factories.

NANOTECHNOLOGY

When K. Eric Drexler popularized the word “nanotechnology” in the 1980s [4], he was talking about building machines on the scale of molecules, a few nanometers wide—motors, robot arms, and even whole computers, far smaller than a cell. Drexler spent the next 10 years describing and analyzing these incredible devices, and responding to accusations of science fiction. Meanwhile, mundane technology was developing the ability to build simple structures on a molecular scale. As nanotechnology became an accepted concept, the meaning of the word shifted to encompass the simpler kinds of nanometer-scale technology. The US National Nanotechnology Initiative was created to fund this kind of nanotech: their definition includes anything smaller than 100 nm with novel properties, where a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.

To put in perspective of just how small is a nanometer, a visual comparison is helpful [5]. If a 20-nm object were blown up to the size of a soccer ball, a virus would be the size of a person, a red blood cell would be the size of a soccer field, a doughnut would be the size of the United Kingdom, and a chicken would be the size of earth. In other words, a nanoparticle is really small.

Much of the work being done today that carries the name “nanotechnology” is not nanotechnology in the original meaning of the word. Nanotechnology, in its traditional sense, means building things from the bottom-up, with atomic precision. This theoretical capability was envisioned as early as 1959 by the renowned physicist Richard Feynman [6] when he said;

I want to build a billion tiny factories, models of each other, which are manufacturing simultaneously … The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom. It is not an attempt to violate any laws; it is something, in principle, that can be done; but in practice, it has not been done because we are too big.

Based on Feynman's vision of miniature factories using nanomachines to build complex products, advanced nanotechnology (sometimes referred to as molecular manufacturing) will make use of positionally controlled mechanochemistry guided by molecular machine systems. Formulating a roadmap for development of this kind of nanotechnology is now an objective of a broadly based technology roadmap project led by Battelle (the manager of several US National Laboratories) and the Foresight Nanotech Institute.

Shortly after this envisioned molecular machinery is created, it will result in a manufacturing revolution, probably causing severe disruption. It also has serious economic, social, environmental, and military implications. Just how can this concept be applied?

One of the greatest environmental concerns on a worldwide basis is global warming. Scientists have positively concluded that this event has and continues to occur, and that it is the result of human activity. Carbon dioxide emitted from numerous sources, primarily electrical power plants and transport vehicles, has increased the atmosphere's retention of heat generated by the sun's rays. This is the result of a thick carbon dioxide layer in the atmosphere that is expected to remain, possibly forever. However, there may also be another phenomenon caused by pollutant particles in the atmosphere that produces an opposite cooling effect called global dimming. Separate studies measure the amount of sunlight passing through the atmosphere and also the rate of evaporation of water. Each of these two studies indicates that there has been a change in the measurements over a period of time causing global dimming. If this is truly the case, the warming effect from carbon dioxide must be greater than we thought. And, if these particles are the result of power plant emissions, and if some of these power plants are replaced by renewable energy sources, the resulting reduction in particles could subsequently increase global warming. So, perhaps, the real answer to these opposing phenomena can be found if we examine them at the nanoparticle level.

Another critical environmental issue is the depletion of our natural resources. In the book entitled Biomimicry (see Chapter 9), Janine Benyus suggests that we take a more careful look at nature's amazing processes to become more efficient in the manufacturing of our products. An example of biomimicry is how spiders produce several different kinds of silk for various functions, such as forming webs or rappelling from drop-offs. The properties of these spider-produced silks are astounding when compared with man-made materials. Compared with an equal weight basis, some of these spider-produced silks are five times stronger than steel and five times tougher than Kevlar, the material used in bulletproof vests. At the same time, the silk can be very elastic and stretch up to 40% of its original length, something that steel wire is incapable of doing. Just imagine if someone could learn to do what the spider does, taking a renewable, soluble material and making an extremely strong water-insoluble fiber using very little energy and generating no toxic waste. By analyzing the spider's process and reproducing it, the entire fiber industry would change dramatically. This may be another role for nanotechnology.

Ms. Benyus provides other examples of natural phenomena that are extremely interesting. These include the abalone shell that is stronger than any known ceramic. If we look at the natural design of the inner coating of these shells, we may learn how to manufacture stronger materials and more sustainably. Still another example is the adhesive created by mussels and other bivalves, allowing them to attach to almost anything, and these adhesives are waterproof. By examining these natural phenomena at the nanoscale, new doors may be opened in our continuous search for a more sustainable environment.

Another example of the application of nanotechnology is the search for the perfect sunscreen. Zinc oxide would be the perfect sunscreen ingredient if the resulting product didn't look quite so silly. Thick, white, and pasty, it once was seen mostly on lifeguards, surfers, and others who needed serious sun protection. But when the sunscreens are made with nanoparticles, they turn clear—which makes them more user-friendly.

Improved sunscreens are just one of the many innovative uses of nanotechnology, which involves drastically shrinking and fundamentally changing the structure of chemical compounds. But products made with nanomaterials also raise largely unanswered safety questions—such as whether the particles that make them effective can be absorbed into the bloodstream and are toxic to living cells [7].

While the development of nanotechnology is over 30 years old, the booming nanotech industry is less than two decades old. Nanoparticles are already found in thousands of consumer products, including cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, anti-microbial infant toys, sports equipment, food packaging, and electronics. In addition to producing transparent sunscreens, nanomaterials help make light and sturdy tennis rackets, clothes that don't stain and stink-free socks.

The particles can alter how products look or function because matter behaves differently at the nanoscale, taking on unique and mysterious chemical and physical properties. Materials made of nanoparticles may be more conductive, stronger, or more chemically reactive than those containing larger particles of the same compound.

One of the problems is that the development of applications for nanotechnology is rapidly outpacing what scientists know about safe use. The unusual properties that make nanoscale materials attractive may also pose unexpected risks to human health and the environment. “We haven't characterized these materials very well yet in terms of what the potential impacts on living organisms could be,” said Kathleen Eggleson, a research scientist at the Center for Nano Science and Technology at the University of Notre Dame [8].

Scientists don't know how long nanoparticles remain in the human body or what they might do there. But research on animals has found that inhaled nanoparticles can reach all areas of the respiratory tract; because of their small size and shape, they can migrate quickly into cells and organs. The smaller particles also might pose risks to the heart and blood vessels, the central nervous system, and the immune system, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Though nanomaterials have been used in consumer products for more than a decade, the FDA acknowledged for the first time in April 2012 that they differ from their bulk counterparts and have potential new risks that may require testing [7]. In draft guidelines on the safety of nanomaterials in cosmetic products, the agency advised companies to consult with the FDA to find out the best way to test their products. Rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach, the FDA plans to assess nano-enabled products on a case-by-case basis, according to the guidelines. “There is nothing inherently good or bad about a nanomaterial,” said Chad Mirkin [8], Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University who nevertheless thinks each class of material should be considered a new form of matter and reviewed for safety.

Proponents of nanotechnology say the potential benefits reach far beyond sunscreen. Controlling matter at the atomic scale is being hailed as the next “industrial revolution” because it could help solve everything from climate change and world hunger to energy shortages and biodiversity loss. In medicine, scientists envision microscopic robots that could swim around in the bloodstream, repairing cells, and diagnosing diseases. Nanotechnology also might unleash powerful new therapeutic weapons for treating many of the worse forms of cancer, cardiovascular problems, and neurodegenerative disease.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are applying nanotechnology to a number of medical projects [5]. They are developing a sensor that will give surgeons a way to collect significant amounts of information about, say, a tumor while the patient is under the knife. They are also searching for a better way to screen for prostate cancer. They are working on a way to tag the actual cells that cause cancer and determine whether and to what extent they exist in the patient. By making it easier to study membrane proteins, researchers have developed nanodiscs that allow for probing the vast number of possible pharmaceutical targets and develop more efficient drugs.

If the new nanomaterial is proved to be safe, what are the steps to manufacture it? Manufacturing at the nanoscale is known as nanomanufacturing. Nanomanufacturing involves scaled-up, reliable, and cost-effective manufacturing of nanoscale materials, structures, devices, and systems. It also includes research, development, and integration of top-down processes and increasingly complex bottom-up or self-assembly processes.

In more simple terms, nanomanufacturing leads to the production of improved materials and new products. As mentioned earlier, there are two basic approaches to nanomanufacturing, either top-down or bottom-up. Top-down fabrication reduces large pieces of materials all the way down to the nanoscale, like someone carving a model airplane out of a block of wood. This approach requires larger amounts of materials and can lead to waste if excess material is discarded. The bottom-up approach to nanomanufacturing creates products by building them up from atomic- and molecular-scale components, which can be time-consuming. Scientists are exploring the concept of placing certain molecular-scale components together that will spontaneously “self-assemble,” from the bottom-up into ordered structures.

Within the top-down and bottom-up categories of nanomanufacturing, there is a growing number of new processes that enable nanomanufacturing. Among these are the following:

• Chemical vapor deposition is a process in which chemicals react to produce very pure, high-performance films.
• Molecular beam epitaxy is one method for depositing highly controlled thin films.
• Atomic layer epitaxy is a process for depositing one-atom-thick layers on a surface.
• Dip pen lithography is a process in which the tip of an atomic force microscope is “dipped” into a chemical fluid and then used to “write” on a surface, like an old fashioned ink pen onto paper.
• Nanoimprint lithography is a process for creating nanoscale features by “stamping” or “printing” them onto a surface.
• Roll-to-roll processing is a high-volume process to produce nanoscale devices on a roll of ultrathin plastic or metal.
• Self-assembly describes the process in which a group of components come together to form an ordered structure without outside direction.

As new technologies allow for smaller and smaller materials, nanotechnology will become a major force in the future.

“BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL”

In the earlier chapters, many different strategies have been discussed to provide a means for developing, extending, or maintaining a competitive advantage while being sustainable. There are, however, ideas for sustainability that don't fit any prescribed strategy. These are adopted when “thinking out of the box” or, in other words, seeking a “big hairy audacious goal” (BHAG). Three different examples are provided to show how one might develop such a project.

Toilets

In the United States almost all toilets are furnished from the same water source as our drinking water. Is it really necessary to flush liquid waste or solid waste with such clean water? If the BHAG philosophy is applied, perhaps another source of water such as gray water would be used. But where would this water be obtained for a home? Again, thinking BHAG will lead to sources of water like collected rainwater, washing machine waste water, dishwasher waste water, or even water going down the drain from a shower. A simple solution would be to collect the drain water from a bathroom sink and divert it to the toilet tank. This gray-water concept has been converted to a number of different designs, one of which is shown in Figure 16.1. Another example of applying the same thinking is in a public bathroom for men. Each of the urinals can have a small water dispenser and sink above each urinal so the person can wash his hands without leaving the urinal as shown in Figure 16.2. The wash water from the sink would then drain down to flush the urinal. Thus the water would be used twice.

Urban Farming

Prior to the nineteenth century, a typical home was four walls and a roof—a very simple structure. As people started living closer together, anyone needing more space added a second floor. But then it seemed to be more cost-effective for more than one family to live in a building with four floors and a roof. So this became the advent for apartment buildings. As land became more valuable and people continued to live in cities, developers started constructing taller buildings. So basically, starting with living at ground level, we have gone to living in high-rise buildings.

The need for more food created a demand for more agricultural land. But because the farm land is usually far from the large cities where most of the population is located, food travels great distances from its source to the dinner table, estimated to be about 1500 miles. Implementing the BHAG concept, why can't agricultural land go up just like homes?

A number of entrepreneurs have begun with this concept by developing fruit and vegetable growing in previously vacant warehouses. One such grow house is AeroFarms [9] in Newark, NJ, which consists of 70,000 ft² in a former indoor arena (Fig. 16.3). The vegetables and/or fruits are grown without sun or soil in a fully controlled indoor environment. The company uses aeroponics to mist the roots of the greens with nutrients, water, and oxygen. The aeroponic system is a closed loop system, using 95% less water than field farming and 40% less than hydroponics.

Another example of vertical farming is a new facility that combines the vertical farming concept with solar energy to create a “net-zero vertical farm.” This new farm, a joint effort between University of Toronto—Scarborough and Centennial College—will provide all the electrical power needed for the building which includes research laboratories and a training facility [10]. It will provide all the power needed from the heating and cooling to the lighting of the vertical farm.

Besides producing more food for the growing population, there are numerous other advantages of vertical farming:

• Year-around crop production
• No weather problems
• All food grown organically
• Eliminates agricultural runoff
• Farming in urban cities
• Reduces fossil fuel use
• Converts black and gray water
• Provides jobs for local residents

CASE STUDY

Shell Oil Company: Eureka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7mfDEJRslY.

REFERENCES

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5. 5.  LAS News Summer. College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Illinois, 2012.
6. 6.  Feynman RP. There is plenty of room at the bottom. Caltech Engineering and Science 1960; 23(5):22–36.
7. 7.  Available at https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/biologics-research-projects/investigation-potential-toxic-effects-engineered-nanoparticles-and-biologic-microparticles-blood-and. Accessed 2019 Oct 27.
8. 8.  Deardorff J. Scientists: nanotech-based products offer great potential but unknown risks. Chicago Tribune, 2012, Jul 10.
9. 9.  Available at https://aerofarms.com. Accessed 2019 Oct 27.
10. 10. Available at https://dailyhive.com/toronto/canada-first-ever-net-zero-vertical-farm-2019. Accessed 2019 Oct 27.