Green Options

One of the biggest problems with solar cells currently on the market is that they are extremely easy to break. Companies intent on manufacturing any sort of solar powered products have to find solutions, and few have yet been perfect. Hoping to change this trend, Dupont recently announced the launch of two new lines of encapsulants specifically designed to contend with the trials inherent in manufacturing photovoltaic products.

In her article, “The Essential Resource for Green Family Life: Healthy Child Healthy World“, Jennifer Lance mentioned the Healthy Child Healthy World’s advice on getting rid of Teflon in your kitchen.  Teflon is the DuPont brand name for polytetrafluoroethtylene, or PTFE, a type of PFC that is used as a non-stick coating for most cookware.  A PFC means that it is a chemical compound composed of fluorine and carbon atoms  If you walk down the aisle at any store that sells pots and pans, or even in your pantry at home, I am sure you have noticed those wonderful non-stick pans that make cooking and clean up a breeze.  Yes, they are wonderful because you do not need to use as much butter, oil, or whatever else you add to prevent food from sticking to the pan but have you ever wondered what happens as that nonstick coating scratched?  What exactly is it that you could be adding to your food?

Chemical maker DuPont (NYSE:DD) said this week it expects to triple its photovoltaic sales to $1 billion annually by 2012.

The increase will come as the market for solar power increases and the company boosts its own ability to produce solar cells, company officials said during the Jefferies 7th Global Clean Technology Conference.

The question for businesses used to be “Can we afford to go green?” Now it is ” Can we afford NOT to go green?” The upcoming Greener by Design 2009 conference, to be held May 19-20 in San Francisco will focus on helping industries learn to cut costs, create efficiency, and move towards sustainability through a series of focused hands-on innovation sessions, small-group consultative sessions, and demonstrations of new materials and tools.

For packaging and other high-volume jobs, should you select flexo or gravure from an environmental perspective? According to two peer-reviewed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies published by DuPont, the answer is flexo.

The study could not do a direct comparison of gravure cylinders and mounted flexographic plates because they are not functionally equivalent. However, the study did investigate the cradle-to-grave environmental footprint of both processes based on final printed film.

Yet another product has been added to the list of new and innovative things we can make from corn. Recently, Dupont Tate & Lyle Bio Products announced that, working in conjunction with Kilfrost, a major producer of de- and anti-icing fluids for aircraft, they have come up with a new de-icer derived from non-petroleum sources – namely, corn and sugar.

Ever heard of HFO-1234yf? No? Well, give it time. You will. That random alphanumeric string is the trade name of a new chemical refrigerant (whose technical name is an even bigger mouthful, 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoroprop-1-ene) jointly developed by Honeywell and Dupont. And after December 8, when the Society of Automotive Engineers’ International Research Program endorsed it as the best answer to Europe’s new, stringent, and impending regulations governing mobile air conditioning (MAC) systems, HFO-1234yf looks to be poised to become the latest industry standard.

Bosch, Du Pont and Xerox have joined the Eco Patent Commons, an international effort to speed up the progress of sustainable development.

Their paticipation brings the number of free patents available for use by anyone in the world to 69, more than doubling the original number.

Hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) the Commons was established in January this year by IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowes and Sony in response to a growing dilemma among large businesses.

Propylene and butylene glycol are two of the worst toxic ingredients quietly slipped into almost all of our conventional beauty products. God knows how they ever got there in the first place! Well, actually I  have several opinions on that subject but another time… Just so you know, these petrochemicals are used for things like anti-freeze (in your car battery), polyurethane (plastics) and as an emollient in your [...]

Companies including General Electric, Nike, Nestle, DuPont “have issued a statement calling for a legally binding and mandatory cap on worldwide greenhouse gas emissions” in today’s Financial Times.

A survey released earlier this summer found that while 82 percent of senior technology leaders from companies around the world “closely” monitor the global warming issue, most (65 percent) do not have a defined energy strategy for it.

The “Return on Environment” study included interviews of 420 senior business decision-makers from the U.S., U.K., Canada, and China who worked for companies with revenues the equivalent of US$100 million or more.

Despite over

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