Event Brings Together Industry and Academia, Announces Grant
05/27/2011
By
Karen AngeloThe Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) recently hosted a symposium with UMass Lowell researchers and Massachusetts businesses to stimulate ideas for developing greener materials.
Each year, TURI funds UMass Lowell research to help companies find alternatives to toxic chemicals. This year, UMass Lowell researchers kicked off discussions by presenting the results of their recent research projects:
BPA-free alternative used to coat food and beverage containers, presented by Assistant Prof. Daniel Schmidt of Plastics Engineering;
Vegetable oil-based binders as an alternative to formaldehyde-based binders, presented by Assistant Prof. Emmanuelle Reynaud of the Department of Mechanical Engineering;
Cleaning surfactants made from pectin as an alternative to nonylphenol ethoxylates, presented by Assistant Prof. Ramaswamy Nagarajan of Plastics Engineering.
Ozone-based sterilization for the biopharmaceutical industry as an alternative to chlorine, presented by Assistant Prof. Seongkyu Yoon of Chemical Engineering and
Halogen-free flame retardants derived from cashew nutshell liquid, presented by Nagarajan and Prof. Jayant Kumar of the Physics Department.
Benchmark Electronics, M.D. Stetson and Alpha Chemical were among the companies that attended the event.
The symposium included a poster session that featured two national award student winners - UMass Lowell student Farhana Zarif was recognized by the annual American Chemical Society conference and students Sethumadhavan Ravichandran and Ryan Bouldin were awarded the
2011 EPA’s People, Prosperity and Planet (P3) extramural research grant.
During the event, TURI announced this year’s request for grant proposals for UMass funding of up to $20,000 per project. The deadline date for applications is July 20, 2011.