American Chemical Society’s Weekly PressPac -- May 7, 2008

Discarded computer parts could one day wind up fueling your car. That’s because researchers in Romania and Turkey have developed a simple, efficient method for recycling printed circuit boards into environmentally-friendly raw materials for use in fuel, plastic, and other useful consumer products. Their study is scheduled for the May 21 issue of ACS’ Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly journal.

The boom in the use of computers has also created one of the world’s biggest environmental headaches: What to do with all the discarded circuit boards, which contain high levels of pollutants such as heavy metals and flame retardants that can potentially harm humans? Researchers are seeking ways to remove these toxins so that these scrap materials can be safely recycled.

In the new study, Cornelia Vasile and colleagues collected printed circuit boards from discarded computers and processed the boards with a combination of high temperatures, catalysts, and chemical filtration. The processing method removed almost all of the toxic substances from the scraps, resulting in oils that can be safely used as fuel or raw materials called feedstocks for a wide variety of consumer products, the researchers say. — MTS

ARTICLE #4 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE “Feedstock Recycling from the Printed Circuit Boards of Used Computers”

DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ef700659t

CONTACT:
Cornelia Vasile, Ph.D.
Romanian Academy
Iasi, Romania
Phone: 40-232-217454
Fax: 40-232-211299
Email:

ARTICLE #5 EMBARGOED FOR 9 A.M., EASTERN TIME, May 12, 2008

Consumers warm up to “greener” personal care products, but labeling controversy broils
Chemical & Engineering News

From soaps to body lotions to shampoos, consumers are increasingly drawn to personal care products that are labeled “green” or environmentally-friendly, a fast-growing market that chalks-up an estimated $4 billion in sales per year worldwide. Despite the hype over these products, there’s growing confusion by consumers and manufacturers alike over what it really means to be labeled as “green,” according to an article scheduled for the May 12 issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS’ weekly newsmagazine.

Written by C&EN Senior Correspondent Marc Reisch, the magazine’s cover story points out that there’s no universal consensus over what is green, organic, or sustainable. To the detriment of consumers, manufacturers sometimes produce misleading labels in an effort to cash-in on the hype, the article notes. Some manufacturers have even begun to certify their products as green under a variety of different standards and criteria or using different certifying bodies.