toxic, petroleum-based chemicals with environmentally-fri-endly and sustainable products. AIT has set itself the goal ofsupporting the industry in the transition to green chemicals,by providing research services covering the entire processchain, from synthesis through to separation and product puri-fication.
âGREEN PRODUCTSâ
The cornerstone for establishing the new research focus ongreen chemicals in the Health & Environment Department is asubstance called dimethyl carbonate, or DMC. This substanceplays an important role as a reagent and solvent in the manu-facture of high grade plastics, pharmaceuticals and agroche-
et against the background of diminishing fos- sil re-sources and stricter environmental regulations, thechemicals industry is making every effort to replace
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CHEMICALS AND SUSTAINABILITY â A CONTRADICTION?NOT ACCORDING TO AIT WHICH HAS ESTABLISHED âGREENPRODUCTSâ AS A NEW RESEARCH FIELD.
AIT has establishedâGreen Productsâ asa new research field.
HIGH TECH LAB FOR GREEN CHEMISTRY
Apart from transport, industry is one of the largest originators of car-bon dioxide emissions, the primary contributor to global warming. Inits new Green Chemicals research field, the Health & En- vironmentDepartment uses this climate-threatening substance as a raw mate-rial and building block for manufacturing valuable industrial chemi-cals.
The team has access to a comprehensive la- boratory in Tulln for itsresearch and tests. Liquid, solid and gaseous substances can be pro-cessed at a variety of temperatures, pressures and retention times inthe AIT reactor facilities, to test va- rious syntheses for large-scaleindustrial use. By combining this with the subsequent separationsteps, entire process chains from manufacture through to the finis-hed product can be developed and demonstrated at laboratory scale.