NCPC Industrial Efficiency Conference 2019 Training future ...ncpc.co.za/files/Conferences/Conference2019/1... · such as fire extinguishers, Scotchgard, textiles and carpet ... •

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NCPC Industrial Efficiency Conference 2019

Training future green chemists – curriculum integration

Dr Lucia Steenkamp

Date: 9 and 10 September 2019

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Green Chemistry – why are we here

• Some of the most lethal compounds are produced naturally – ricin and

botulinum

• Bombarded by toxic compounds in everyday life

• Hamburger packaging

• Paint

• Baby bottles etc

• Most POPs (pesticides market) removed from markets and no further

production, as a result of Stockholm convention, except for DDT in

Africa

• Other POPs such as those found in transformer oils and plastics still

around

• Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) still found in many industries

such as fire extinguishers, Scotchgard, textiles and carpet

• New emerging threat – pharmaceuticals, personal care products,

hormone, endocrine disruptors etc

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• From 1930 to 2000 global production of pharmaceuticals increased from 1

million tons to 400 million tons/year

• Over 50% of the pharmaceutical has harmful environmental effects and

70% of these have significant environmental impact [EuroStat]

• Pharmaceuticals/and breakdown products are now found in significant

concentrations in waste water treatment plants as well as coastal waters

• Article by Gavrilescu (New Biotechnology Jan 2014) report the levels in waste

water influent and effluent.

• Current waste water treatments do not completely remove/destroy certain

pharmaceuticals, estrogens, androgens or detergent compounds (chemical

structural stability)

• Up to 6.8 ug/L of certain pharmaceuticals have been detected in coastal

waters (antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, analgesics). 69 in higher

concentrations than EU permitted standards

• Effects on marine and human life and creating antibiotic resistant strains

(Gaw et al (2014) Phil Trans R Soc 369)

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• John Warner (one of the founders of green chemistry) admits that synthetic

chemistry has to change as it has resulted in compounds which are

carcinogenic, endocrine disruptors, neurotoxins etc.

• Many compounds are harmful to the environment

• No/most scientists don’t deliberately invent compounds that are causing

cancer

• Warner states that no Chemistry course teaches toxicology

• Cant’ ask inventors to make materials safer if this was not how they learned

to do chemistry

• Using toxic materials in developed countries result in regulatory

impediments and significant liability cost

• Most countries have regulations in place but in developing countries the

legislation is not enforced

• Chemists have to be trained to be responsible for the environment and

society

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Identifying the problem – according to Warner

• According to Warner:

– “We have all these factions in society worrying about toxicity,

environmental impact, the policies and law governing chemicals

but for some bizarre reason, the field of chemistry itself has been

devoid of these components”

– “There have been strides. Universities today offer electives in

green chemistry, and most have at least one faculty member

who embrace green chemistry. But a seismic shift requires

systemic change”

– “My father was an electrician and he couldn’t come into your

house to change a lightbulb unless he had a document that said

he could do it safely. How is it possible that the only humans on

the planet given the gift of making a new molecule have

absolutely no responsibility to anticipate if they’re about to make

the most potent neurotoxin in history?”

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Initial solutions by Warner

• Warner introduced the first PhD program in 1997 at the University of

Massachusetts

• Graduates scooped up by corporations within days of

commencement – illustrates the demand

• Warner’s lab drew from visiting professors to high school interns –

besides their research work – they had to regularly visit a third-grade

classroom to discuss their research

• Children need a positive experience of science by the eighth

grade or they will never be interested in science

• “Need creative, innovative and diverse people in chemistry to invent

better material”

• In 2007 Warner left academia

• He founded the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry and

Beyond Benign, an educational non-profit

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Possible education solutions in South Africa

• According to education statistic in March 2016 for South Africa

– ~1.2 million children start Grade1 but only 680 000 of these get

to grade 12 and only ~78% pass matric

– The reasons for the amount of students not passing matric from

grade 1 to 12 are many

– Article on quality of teachers in South Africa -

https://www.biznews.com/sa-investing/2019/01/09/poor-quality-

teachers-holding-back-sa-education-system

– Half of children in Grade 4 and 5 can’t do basic calculations

– 10% of teachers are absent from school each day

– 79% of Grade 6 mathematics teachers were classified as having

content knowledge levels below the level at which they were

teaching

https://www.biznews.com/sa-investing/2019/01/09/poor-quality-teachers-holding-back-sa-education-system

















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Possible education solutions

• Teacher quality is one of the biggest factors determining the learning

outcomes of students (Biznews.com 2019)

– The quality of a nation’s teachers cannot be divorced from the quality of its

learners exiting schools.

– The end of school is the beginning of higher education. (Biznews.com 2019)

• Lack of teacher accountability in SA

• Necessary to introduce “Teacher professional standards”

• To implement Green Chemistry in schools, teachers will have to be

re-educated

• Training a few teachers who can train other teachers

• Online courses of Beyond benign can be introduced for teachers

• Essential that Green Chemistry is introduced at school to groom the

new scientists of the future

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Beyond benign in the school system

• Best time to become a chemist – global market for green chemistry

projected to grow from $11 billion in 2011 to $100 billion by 2020.

• Students from middle school to high school should be encouraged to

study physical sciences

• Green chemistry makes physical science relevant to the daily lives

of students

• Green chemistry will ensure a sustainable future with safer

alternatives

• Beyond benign offers training workshops and online courses as well

as training Lead teachers who can train others

• South Africa may want to send a few teachers to the USA to be

trained as Lead Teachers.

• NCPC can also train Lead Teachers

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Beyond benign at schools

• The curriculum can be obtained free

• Many examples/experiments in the lessons which can be done by

the learners

• Value of hands-on experiments

– Develop and maintain the curiosity of students

– Visually experiencing the outcome of an experiment

• Sense of awe and wonder about how things work

• Promotes a fascination with potions and concoctions at an

early stage

• Increase an eagerness to invent things in their pre-teens

• Must always be done with health and safety in mind

(https://www.greenhearted.org/greening-chemistry.html)

https://www.greenhearted.org/greening-chemistry.html



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• Complete teachers guide with a lesson overview available from Beyond

Benign

• The objectives, activities, time required etc given in detail

• Worksheet for the students are available

• Games which form part of selected lessons are described in detail

• Connection with the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry is given

• A cheat sheet with the answers are supplied for teachers

• Really interactive and will grab the attention of the learners at any school

level

• The experiments are described in full and can be modified for students from

Kindergarten to Grade 12

• 22 Experiments available on the Beyond Benign website

• Some experiments also include games especially for the younger grades to

middle school level

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Beyond benign at schools – Examples of work

(Beyond benign)

Elementary school – Properties of Adhesives

• Explain 3 criteria for new green technology

– Must be safer for humans and environment

– Must cost less or the same

– Must work better or similar

• Students evaluate different kinds of tape – packaging, duct tape, masking

tape, cellotape

• Determine the force required to pull the tape from a desk – can use a

spring scale or students can comment on how easy or difficult it was.

Older learners learn how to record data

• Can ask additional information – for older learners - why there are tapes of

different strengths, uses for different tapes

• Discussion on animals that produce adhesives – frog tongues, snails etc

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Beyond benign at schools – Experiment

examples

Middle school – Biomimicry lesson

• Explain the concept - Biomimicry is the science and art of emulating

Nature’s best biological ideas to solve human problems.

• Explain blue mussel being the inspiration for developing adhesives

• Reference to additional interesting material for teachers and learners

• A game called Biomimicry Matching game is included and explained.

• Learners use the game to match examples in nature which can be used to

develop other products – teaches critical/innovative thinking

• Examples are:

– using a firefly to develop more efficient LED lighting

– Lotus flower resulting in development of self-cleaning paint

– a school of fish to develop vertical wind turbines etc

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High School - The dose makes the poison

• Using methanol, ethanol and isopropanol to measure ecotoxicity on

lettuce seed

• Use serial dilutions

• Set up Petri dishes with wetted filter paper containing the selected

solvent and solvent concentration

• Lettuce seeds were added

• Incubation for 1 week and collecting data on the seeds which

germinated

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Higher education – incorporating Green

Chemistry

• Green Chemistry is not a discipline in itself – but an approach for

conducting science in a responsible manner so that future

generations are not compromised by today’s actions (Braun et al Completing

Our Education 2006)

• Current chemistry and chemical engineering curricula are already

overwhelmed by the amount of information and time required

• Green Chemistry should not replace existing material

• Green Chemistry should also not be an elective as it is essential

• Currently Green Chemistry in textbooks are presented as “optional

material” which students will no be tested on and “yield is

everything” is promoted in classic chemistry

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Chemistry – barriers to teaching

• Still very few undergraduate Green Chemistry courses available in

countries other than the USA

• Courses are normally available as electives and not mandatory for

graduation

• Quantitative reasoning and balancing chemical equations are often

neglected in organic chemistry courses and is essential for Green

Chemistry (quantification for waste material)

• Toxicology, hazard analysis, safety and waste minimisation are

often not part of the core chemistry curriculum

• Researchers often see Green Chemistry as related to

environmental chemistry

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Chemistry – stand-alone or integrated course

Greening an existing course (from Andraos J (2012). Designing a green organic chemistry lecture

course in Dicks AP(ed). Green organic chemistry in lecture and laboratory, p 29 – 68. Boca Raton FL, CRC Press)

Pros:

• 1. Less time consuming to append existing material

• 2. No new faculty members have to be recruited to teach the

course (saving on cost)

• 3. Saving on administrative cost

• 4. Same textbooks can be used and supplemented with new

material where necessary

• 5. No new course fees for students

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Greening an existing course

Cons:

• 1. Reduction in time available to cover types of reactions – time is

now devoted to comparing old and green methods for the same

target molecule

• 2. Trade-off between amount of content and depth covered

• 3. The Green Chemistry parts are often covered in a “show and

tell” method and the quantitative calculations are neglected

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New Stand-Alone course

Pros

• 1. The best option is to couple the Green Chemistry with Industrial chemistry as

Industrial Chemistry lends itself to many examples to discuss green alternatives and

the 12 principles

• 2. The course title containing “Green” may attract more students

• 3. Green chemistry awards and coverage of green topics in for instance Chemical

Engineering News may attract more students

• 4. A dedicated course will give more time to fully develop ideas in green chemistry

and metrics analysis and teach multidiscipline and critical thinking

• 5. Advanced case studies can be presented from real world settings

• 6. In-depth written assignments are possible which will encourage decision

making required in Green Chemistry

• 7. Greater student engagement, understanding and appreciation of chemistry

• 8. Toxicology topics can be covered in more detail

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New Stand-Alone course

Cons

• 1. Will need to be launched from scratch as many Universities do not offer

Industrial Chemistry or they are elective courses

• 2. Time-consuming for educators with a significant learning curve

• 3. Additional cost to hire new personnel and teaching facilities

• 4. Scheduling complexities and increased tuition fees for a new course

• 5. Curriculum content in chemistry and engineering is already

overwhelming

• 6. Accreditation and certification of the course with Chemical Societies

and Education authorities

• 7. Convincing senior faculty members of the additional time to be spent

on a new course

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Yale curriculum

• Very good introductory general chemistry course

• Addresses the basic concepts in chemistry such a nomenclature,

the basics of a molecule, calculating molar mass (lesson 4 – 6)

• Lesson 1 – 3 introduce the need for Green Chemistry as well as the

12 principles. Lesson 3 might be too long for a single lecture

approximately 40 minute period as it contains 100 slides

• The course has 2 test papers and 1 exam paper with the possible

questions and answers which are very valuable

• 23 Lectures in total in the course – this might be a complete stand

alone course in Green Chemistry for first year BSc students and

BEng students

• It is too comprehensive to integrate into an existing chemistry

course

• Unfortunately no experimental work in the course which could

assist students with hands-on experience

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Yale curriculum

• Some references to Biocatalysis are given in some of the lectures

• No specific reactions such as hydrogenation/reductions/oxidations

etc are discussed which are part of classical chemistry – can

therefore not replace an existing chemistry course

• The lecture on Green Analytical Chemistry may require a specialist

in the field to present – Analytical Chemistry as an applied field is

shrinking in SA

• Three lectures dedicated to toxicology – what it is, factors affecting

it, structure determines function, risk assessment, dose-response,

ideal chemical, structural features causing toxicity and ways to

reduce toxicity

• The toxicity lectures are very interesting and relevant

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Yale curriculum

• Would have liked a more comprehensive discussion of a toxicity test such

as AMES which explains why a compound can become more toxic after

metabolism

– Cytochrome P450 in the liver converts compounds to more water

soluble derivatives by adding oxygens and this may be more toxic

– Microorganisms in nature also contain Cytochrome P450 which may

convert toxin to more toxic derivatives

• Final two lectures use an educational online computer game to explore

safer chemical design and absorption, distribution, metabolism and

excretion of compounds – should be very interesting and valuable for

students

• Probably the same game described by Mellor et al (2018) Green

Chemistry Letters and Reviews 11, 103 – 110

• Game is free of charge and assist students to think like professional

designers

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Additional resources for teaching Green

Chemistry – Design game

• Game concept based on 12 Principles of Green Chemistry

• The game simulates real-world constraints that may affect chemical

product development

• Different combinations of molecular parameters leading to outputs

such as toxicity, biodegradability, biotransformation and overall

performance can be selected – the player must make decisions

about potential trade-offs

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Chemistry – Design game

• Two levels of complexity

• Students are offered “tips” which provides additional information

• The game requires Fact memorising as well as knowledge transfer

• The chemical compound design is assessed on function and

circumventing toxicity

• Feedback is given after each task

• The student can therefore change the selection criteria and

improve the design

• The player is rewarded for the success through reward points,

reinforcement and fun orientation

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Chemistry – Design game (Mellor et al 2018)

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• Many web-based Green Chemistry material

Additional resources for teaching Green Chemistry

Selected web-based Green Chemistry teaching resources (Andraos and Dicks (2012), Chem Educ Res Pract13, 69 - 79

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Chemistry - Experiments

Greener undergraduate laboratory experiments in “non-organic” areas ((Andraos and Dicks (2012), Chem Educ Res Pract13, 69 - 79

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Chemistry - Experiments

Rozov, et al Athens Journal of Sciences 2, 117 - 130

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Chemistry – Experiments (Aspirin)

From Rozov, et al Athens Journal of Sciences 2, 117 - 130

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Chemistry – Experiments (biodiesel)


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Chemistry – Experiments (Biodegradable

plastic)


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Conclusion

• Green Chemistry teaching is essential for future chemistry students

• Green Chemistry should not just be an elective for Chemistry majors

• Green Chemistry and the 12 Principles should be incorporated in a fun way in school

curricula from elementary school

• Teachers that can lead Green Chemistry should be identified and sent for courses

(Beyond Benign or NCPC).

• The leading teachers should train other teachers

• It is difficult to decide on the model at University level - integration vs stand-alone

course

• Curricula in Chemistry and Engineering are already overwhelming

• Educators will have to be trained on Green Chemistry concepts, especially the 12

Principles and multidiscipline integration and critical thinking

• Senior educators/professors will need to be convinced about Green Chemistry

incorporation in the curriculum

• New experiments will have to be designed for courses (available on-line)

• New library resources may be necessary covering Green Chemistry

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Conclusion

• The Yale curriculum might be valuable for other BSc students – Biochemistry,

Zoology, Botany as chemical compounds impact all living thing

• Some aspects of the Yale curriculum may be valuable for non-scientific courses as an

elective – law, business etc. as chemistry impacts all areas of our lives

• The Yale curriculum as a stand-alone course may be valuable to first year chemistry

students

• The Yale curriculum will have to be modified if it is going to be used as an integrated

course – it is very comprehensive and will require at least 23 or more 40 minute

lecture times

• The gamification of the course in lectures 25 and 26 may be more valuable to the

students once they have mastered some of the more advanced organic chemistry

courses – learning about all the different types of reactions

• The gamification of the course is very valuable to teach students multidiscipline

thinking as well as structure and effect relationships

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Conclusion

• An understanding of toxicology is vital for chemistry students to be able to

design less toxic compounds, but also the concept that living organisms can

metabolise compounds resulting in even worse toxic compounds

• Chemists must take responsibility for the compounds they design and for

the environment

• The format of test and exam papers may have to be re-evaluated as Green

Chemistry requires more multidiscipline thinking

• The best method may still be to present current organic chemistry in a new

way - classic methods are still being taught and comparing the reagents

used, conditions such as temperature, energy requirements and waste

created vs elimination of waste to greener/sustainable alternatives

• Could the electives be replaced with a fixed, mandatory Green Chemistry

course?

• Working with Yale, Beyond Benign and NCPC will be valuable to establish

Green Chemistry at Universities in South Africa

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19 September 2018

Thank you

Documents

NCPC Industrial Efficiency Conference 2019 Training future ...ncpc.co.za/files/Conferences/Conference2019/1... · such as fire extinguishers, Scotchgard, textiles and carpet ... •