CHEM 3710: Green Chemistry - Greener Synthetic Pathways Award Analysis

This report delves into the realm of eco-friendly chemistry, focusing on the 2014 Greener Synthetic Pathways Award winner, Cargill, Inc., and their innovative vegetable oil-based transformer fluid, Envirotemp™ FR3™. The report highlights the environmental benefits of this alternative to traditional mineral oil, including its non-toxicity to aquatic life, reduced flammability, and lower carbon footprint. It discusses the invention and advantages of the FR3™ fluid, such as its extended cellulose material lifespan and reduced risk of explosions. A lifecycle assessment using BEES® 4.0 confirmed the fluid's lower carbon footprint and increased effectiveness compared to normal oil. The report also emphasizes the positive environmental impacts of green chemistry, including reduced ozone depletion, smog formation, and chemical disruption to ecosystems. In conclusion, the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award has spurred significant innovation, eliminating millions of pounds of harmful chemicals and conserving billions of gallons of water, with ongoing efforts to promote sustainable chemistry practices.

Running head: ECO-FRIENDLY CHEMISTRY 1
Eco-Friendly Chemistry
Name
Institution

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Eco-Friendly Chemistry
Green Chemistry is a term used to describe chemical goods and chemical processes that
minimizes or eliminates the production of harmful hazardous material in the environment.
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) stride to expand the adoption of this diverse and
revolutionary discipline has resulted to great environmental benefits, strengthened economy, and
growth of innovation. There are twelve principles that demonstrate the breadth of the concept of
green chemistry. Some of the principles are; preventing waste; maximize atom economy,
designing safer products and chemicals, use of safer solvent and reaction environment, increased
energy use among many others.
To support the growth of green chemistry, EPA came up with a presidential Green Chemistry
Challenge Award competition that inspires people, organization, and groups to compete for
yearly presidential awards that recognizes research in cheaper, cleaner, and smart chemistry.
Through honoring and awarding outstanding chemistry projects that incorporates principles of
green chemistry into the field of manufacturing, quality control, and design programs key players
in the industry will attain pollution prevention goals. This paper presents the 2014 Greener
Synthetic pathways Award winners, Cargill, Inc (Anastay, 2002). The recipient demonstrated
commitment to designing, implementation and development of green chemical technologies that
depicted scientific innovation; it was feasible, economically viable, and less hazardous to both
environment and human.

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Project Innovation and Benefit
Introduction
High-Voltage electric transformers were once insulated with fluid to provide cooling and prevent
short circuits. The fluid used as insulator was Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) until the ban
was imposed in mid 1970s and scientist adopted mineral oil as its replacement. However, oil was
highly flammable and it was toxic to aquatic life such as fish. Cargill finally came up with
vegetable oil based transformer fluid that provided superior performance; it was not toxic to
aquatic life, less flammable and with lower carbon footprint. The above characteristics make the
vegetable oil the best alternative and its effects positive effects to the environment matters a lot.
Invention of Vegetable Oil Dielectric Insulating- A Case of Fluid for High-Voltage
Transformers
For the High-Voltage transformers to work, it must be filled with an insulating fluid which
control short-circuiting and absorb extra heat in the experiment. For decades, the transformers
were filled polychlorinated biphenyls and the petroleum based mineral oil which was later
banned because of the pollution it had on environment. In addition, although the mineral oil was
not as hazardous as PCBs, it is very flammable and has negative impacts on aquatic organisms.
Moreover, hydrophobic levels of mineral oil is very high and as such, water in the system goes
up through the insulating material into the transformer, the uptake rate is increased by the
cellulose material that is usually wood. Cellulose materials degrade when they are exposed to
water and the standard working temperature of the transformer is altered. In this case, the service
life of the transformer was heavily dependent on the shelf life of the solid cellulose insulators

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and as such, shielding the degradation process of the insulator was very vital to increase the shelf
life of the transformer. Moreover, the vegetable oil takes functions for a longer period and its
mechanism is easier and effectively manageable.
Due to that challenge, Cargill developed Envirotemp™ FR3™ dielectric fluid from vegetable
that was eco-friendly and that was perfectly working for the transformer. The bio based oils was
developed to replace the petroleum oil used in transformer because the later was toxic to the
environment. The use of the newly developed oil greatly to the transformer, the size of the
transformer reduced because of the better thermal performance of the vegetable oil. The FR3™
fluid has been made in such a way that it is not flammable than the normal oil; it therefore
minimizes the risk of explosion when temperatures are high. In addition, the Cargill oil increases
the shelf life of the cellulose material by 10 times longer than the previously used oil thereby
extending the insulation life period and the shelf-life of the transformer.
To ascertain the effectiveness of the FR3™ fluid, lifecycle assessment was conducted using
BEES® 4.0 and it emerged that the fluid had less carbon footprint in the entire lifecycle of the
transformer; moreover, the largest reduction happened in the raw material used, and the
transportation phase. After carbon foot print analysis, it was found out that, electric transformer
is 60 times more effective when using the vegetable fluid compared to the normal oil. Moreover,
the fluid is less toxic, highly biodegradable and the fluid being from vegetable, it is renewable.
Finally, there are no single records of explosion and fire for the millions of electric transformers
filled with the vegetable fluid since when the FR3™ fluid was launched. The invention of the
FR3™ fluid was a great milestone in the power industry because the levels of pollution reduced
immensely. In addition, the use of biodegradable material has sparked research and innovation in

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the oil industry with scientists adopting more use of eco-friendly materials in their research
(Cann, 1999).
FR3™ fluid has had a great impact in many industries across the world, it has further improved
Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Technology Verification and it has also
achieved the lowest environmental impact performance grades in the assessment conducted by
BEE experts (Coish, 2016). The FR3™ fluid has further improved USDA bio-based product
clarification with networked research findings that promotes Green Chemistry. Finally, the fluid
has been certified by both Underwriters Laboratory and the Mutual Factory research corporation.
This development is in FR3™ fluid has had a great milestone in the eco-world. The reduced
carbon emission is among the great steps taken to reduce emission of harmful carbon emission in
the atmosphere. The use FR3™ fluid is now adopted around the globe by power supplying
companies.
Environmental Impact of the Green Chemistry
Green chemistry has very positive impacts to the environment, first materials degrade to
innocuous products or they are recycled for future use, green chemistry further reduces ozone
depletion, smog formation, and global warming, moreover, there are less chemicals disrupting
the eco-system. Finally, living things that is plants and animals are not affected by toxic
chemicals in the environment.
Conclusion

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Environmental Protection Agency has been giving honors to six winners annually. The awards
given are based in six categories namely; academia, green synthetic pathways such the use of
biodegradable materials that are eco-friendly, improvement in small business, improvement in
catalysts or novel reagent such as microorganism and biocatalysts used in micro-biology, growth
of natural processes such as fermentation and the synthesis of biometric, convergent synthesis
and the atom economical synthesis. The six categories must be fully supporting Green Chemistry
and the use of materials that are not toxic and readily available. Moreover, the honor must adhere
to the best designs that adhere to elimination of carbon emission (Singh, 2006). Special honors
are given to the projects that reduce the generation of toxic materials such as carbon to the
environment, the award has therefore sparked a series of research among scientist more so the
young scientist
The presidential Green Chemistry has been there for decades, for the last 21 years now; it has
had 109 winners in all the named categories. Statistical has proved that, the growth in Green
Chemistry has eliminated 826 million pounds of harmful and hazardous toxic chemical
materials, it has saved more than 25 billion gallon of water and it has eliminated 8 billion pounds
of both carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere (Hack, 2016). The
awards have been a game changer in the scientific world with and the future projections are
promising (Clark, 2006). EPA is looking forward to honor more scientists and bring the pollution
to its lowest level.

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Reference
Anastas, P. T., & Kirchhoff, M. M. (2002). Origins, current status, and future challenges of green
chemistry. Accounts of chemical research, 35(9), 686-694.
Coish, P., Brooks, B. W., Gallagher, E. P., Kavanagh, T. J., Voutchkova-Kostal, A.,
Zimmerman, J. B., & Anastas, P. T. (2016). Current status and future challenges in
molecular design for reduced hazard.
Haack, J. A., & Hutchison, J. E. (2016). Green chemistry education: 25 years of progress and 25
years ahead.
Cann, M. C. (1999). Bringing state-of-the-art, applied, novel, green chemistry to the classroom
by employing the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. Journal of chemical
education, 76(12), 1639.
Singh, M. M., Szafran, Z., & Pike, R. M. (2006). Microscale chemistry and green chemistry:
Complementary pedagogies. Journal of Chemical Education, 76(12), 1684.
Clark, J. H. (2006). Green chemistry: today (and tomorrow). Green Chemistry, 8(1), 17-21.