| Carnegie
Mellon University chemistry professor Terry Collins, internationally
recognized for creating a new class of oxidation catalysts with
the potential for enormous, positive impact on the environment
by significantly reducing industrial pollution, will speak at Berea
College Thursday, Feb. 26, at 3 p.m. in Phelps Stokes Chapel.
Collins' talk "Green Chemistry: Sustaining a High Technology
Civilization" will highlight applications and  connections
between science and issues relating to sustainability.
Experts world-wide believe that Collins' systems can be used
to effectively replace chlorine-based oxidants in large global
technologies so that some of society's most toxic chlorinated
residuals are not produced. The systems also enable valuable
new technologies for previously unsolved environmental and health
problems.
Applications for Collins' metal-containing catalytic peroxide
activators include use in the pulp and paper industry, for water
purification in diverse industries, for the easy destruction
of dangerous pollutants including chemical warfare agents, for
removing sulfur from fuels and for products as commonplace as
laundry detergent.
The activators, called tetraamido-macrocyclic ligands(TAML)
activators, allow hydrogen peroxide to be used instead of harmful
chlorine. TAML research is the keystone of decades of Collins'
work to develop green, or environmentally friendly, processes
for industry. To date, Collins and his research team have been
awarded 15 patents for their work.
Collins has been a faculty member since 1987 of the Mellon College
of Science, where he is Thomas Lord Professor of Chemistry. He
also heads the Institute for Green Oxidation Chemistry on the
Carnegie Mellon campus. The Institute pursues research, education
and development of holistic approaches in green chemistry, with
an emphasis on replacing polluting technologies with benign processes.
His honors include the Environmental Protection Agency's 1999
Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award and Japan's Society
of Pure and Applied Coordination Chemistry Award. Collins is
a fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the World Innovation
Institute and a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. He also is associate
editor of the Americas for the international journal Green Chemistry.
Collins, a New Zealand native, earned his undergraduate and doctor's
degrees from the University of Auckland.
The lecture is co-sponsored by the College's Department of Chemistry
and the Sustainability and Environmental Studies Program. Admission
is free and open to the public. For more information contact:
Lee Roecker, chemistry department (859) 985-3319 or Richard Olson,
sustainability and environmental studies director (859) 985-3593.
For more about Collins and his research visit www.chem.cmu.edu/groups/collins/
Collins can be contacted at:
Phone: (412) 268-6335
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