• In the general chemistry lab, Senior Instructor Deborah Exton has developed a series of greener alternatives to the traditional lab experiments. The new experiments significantly reduce the amount of toxic waste generated in the large sections of general chemistry lab as well as provide a safer working environment for the students and staff.
• Parallel with Exton's efforts, Professors Cathy Page, David Tyler and David Johnson have developed a general chemistry course sequence that emphasizes environmental and green topics. This new sequence is gaining popularity as increasing numbers of students are interested in learning science in the context of environment-related topics.
• At the sophomore level, the UO's Green Organic Lab curriculum, developed by James Hutchison and Kenneth Doxsee, is the first of its kind to fully implement the use of green reagents and solvents in the organic laboratory. Students learn to identify hazardous substances and processes, develop alternative reaction procedures and evaluate the efficacy of the new procedures while mastering the traditional lab techniques and learning state-of-the-art green techniques.
• Assistant Department Head Dr. Julie Haack has developed GEMs, a database of green chemistry laboratory experiments and educational materials that will enable educators at all levels to easily identify and adopt specific experiments into their curriculum. This project supports efforts by the American Chemical Society, Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation to make green chemistry educational materials more accessible to chemical educators. This project provides for the identification, organization and dissemination of core "green chemistry" materials that can be utilized to support chemical education across chemical disciplines (e.g., general, organic, physical, analytical, materials, etc.) and among diverse educational audiences (e.g., K-12, colleges and universities). The database provides a brief description of the item and the criteria used for inclusion in the database. This database complements an existing annotated bibliography on green chemistry developed by John Warner. Since the database includes both published and original submissions, this project provides the infrastructure for collaborative development of this resource among the chemical education community.

At Oregon, we have exciting projects going on in a number of labs, including:

In Ken Doxsee's Lab:
1. Development of methods for the phase- and shape-controlled synthesis of materials using benign precursors and solvents.
2. Design and synthesis of ligands for the selective binding and extraction of metal ions, including radioisotopes.
3. Development of new experiments illustrating the principles of green chemistry for the instructional laboratory.

In Jim Hutchison's Lab:
1. Combining green principles and nanoscience to develop new technology for the future of microelectronics.
2. Designing ligands that can be used to monitor, seperate, or trap radio isotopes - working toward a greener approach to nuclear chemistry.
3. The Hutchison lab has also been actively involved in developing experiments and curriculum for the instructional green lab.

In Darren Johnson's Lab:
1. Developing molecular receptors for a variety of toxic metals and hazardous compounds.
2. In the area of metal remediation - developing new chelators to target toxic heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, bismuth and antimony, and making large nanoscale chelators for radioactive metal remediation. The long-range potential applications include making better drugs for chelation therapy for humans poisoned by these metals; developing materials for environmental remediation of poisoned soil, water and exhaust; making nanoscale assemblies for nuclear waste remediation reprocessing; and making sensors for the detection of low concentrations of toxic metal ions.
3. They are also developing nanoscale assemblies that can act as hosts for small guest molecules. Target guest molecules potentially include toxins, nerve agents, and hazardous anions.

In Dave Tyler's Lab:
1. Photodegradeable plastics.
2. A project to make ammonia in an environmentally-sound way.
3. Carbon-hydrogen bond activation in water.
4. Photochemical water splitting.

Learn more about the UO's efforts in green chemistry education by seeing our Media Coverage.

WHY Green Chemistry at the University of Oregon?

Home • Green Organic Lab • Green Chemistry Resources • Media Coverage

UO Chemistry Department