U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2022 Green Chemistry Challenge Awards is part of the agency's support for innovative green chemistry.
Winners in this year's Green Chemistry Challenge Awards developed new and innovative technologies "that provide solutions to significant environmental challenges and spur innovation and economic development," according to a June 6 EPA news release. This year, EPA added added a new award for technology that reduces or eliminates greenhouse gas emissions.
"EPA encourages the use of innovative green chemistry, to help reduce or even eliminate the generation of hazardous substances, lowering the burden of potential environmental contamination," said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Martha Guzman, according to the release. "We are proud to recognize these awardees who are working to develop innovative green chemistry, recycling and safer manufacturing practices and safer products. Their efforts help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce solvent waste and protect pollinators."
The Green Chemistry Challenge Awards are in recognition of chemical technologies that incorporate green chemistry into chemical design, manufacture and use. Winners were recognized during the virtual American Chemical Society Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference, the release reported.
Three of the five winners this year were from California, including Amgen, Provivi and Professor Mark Mascal of the University of California, according to the release.
"At Amgen, we are committed to developing manufacturing processes that minimize our impact to the environment," Andrew Parsons, principal scientist at Amgen, said in the release. "I am excited that the EPA has recognized Amgen with the 2022 Green Chemistry Challenge Award for developing a greener manufacturing process for one of Amgen’s oncology medicines. Since Amgen also received this award in 2017, this year's recognition is a validation to Amgen’s continued focus on environmental sustainability and green chemistry."
"We at Provivi are very honored by this award and would like to thank the EPA for recognizing our contributions to green chemistry and making agriculture more sustainable, most notably with our ProviviFAW product for controlling the destructive fall armyworm in corn crops," Peter Meinhold, Provivi co-founder and CTO, said, according to the release. "Provivi invented and scaled two new pheromone synthesis platforms that are based on innovative metathesis and fermentation technologies. The resulting pheromones are used in crop protection products that have a non-toxic mode of action and reduce the need for conventional pesticides."
"We are thrilled that the EPA is recognizing the years of hard work my lab at UC Davis has put into the development of this biomass-to-chemicals process and the ingenuity of the team at Origin Materials in using it to bring carbon-negative materials to the market," Mascal said in the release. "It is highly rewarding to play even a small part in helping the U.S. meet its sustainable development goals."
