![[logo] US EPA](http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/logo_epaseal.gif){kind=logo}
Dr. Eric Beckman
STAR Researcher Wins Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award
(October, 2002) Dr. Eric Beckman, a National Center for Environmental Research STAR grantee and a chemical engineering professor at the University of Pittsburgh, recently received a Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for his work as a STAR researcher from 1995 to 1999. He won the award for his group's efforts to create the first highly soluble compounds that don't contain fluorine. The award was presented at the "6th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference" in 2002.
The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award program was established in 1995 as a competitive effort to recognize and promote innovative technologies that can help prevent pollution and be broadly applied throughout industry. The program is administered by EPA's Green Chemistry Program in the Office of Pollution Prevention & Toxics. EPA operates the awards program with 20 partners from industry, government, academia, and other organizations including the American Chemical Society. The technology must have reached a significant milestone within the past five years in the United States (e.g., been researched, demonstrated, implemented, applied, patented, etc.). Typically five awards are given annually to industry and government sponsors, an academic investigator, and a small business.
Dr. Beckman was a Science to Achieve Results (STAR) researcher from 1995 through 1999. In the research done for his two grants, Dr. Beckman investigated the potential of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a solvent. CO2 is naturally abundant, nonflammable, inexpensive, and has relatively low toxicity compared with other organic solvents. However, until Dr. Beckman's discoveries, CO2 was not an efficient solvent because of its chemical properties. As a STAR grantee, Dr. Beckman was able to successfully design the needed surfactants that were highly soluble in CO2 and allowed materials to be removed from water.
Dr. Beckman received his Ph.D. in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts in 1988. In 1989, he joined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to that he was postdoctoral researcher at Battelle's Pacific Northwest Laboratory. Dr. Beckman also previously held industrial positions at Monsanto Plastics & Resins, and in Union Carbide's Silicones and Urethanes Intermediates Division.
For more information about Dr. Beckman's research as a STAR grantee, visit:
http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/display.abstractDetail/abstract/127/report/0 and
http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/display.abstractDetail/abstract/932/report/0.
Additional information on the STAR program can be found at the National Center for Environmental Research. For more information, contact Estella Waldman at Waldman.Estella@epa.gov.