This is one of the innovations that will be presented at the "Green Chemistry" conference that will be held today and tomorrow at Tel Aviv University
An innovative technology for the efficient, biological decomposition of severe contamination below the surface of the ground - for example, due to waste from toxic chemical substances used in the production of ammunition at the Military Industries (MIF) factories in Israel - will be presented this week (June 6-7) at an international scientific conference on "green chemistry", which is organized by The Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University.
The problem of underground contamination with various toxic substances, which were used in the production processes of ammunition, has been very disturbing in recent years, especially after the evacuation of several factories of the military industry, which operated for many years in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramat Hasharon and Nof Yam/Herzliya. It turned out that materials used in the production processes of ammunition sank to the ground water and caused serious contamination of the soil.
The ground-breaking technology which, according to its developers, is able to provide an effective solution to this difficult problem, will be presented at the conference by Dr. John Collins from the Veru-TEK company in the state of Connecticut, USA.
Two other technological innovations in the field of green chemistry that will also be revealed for the first time in Israel at the international scientific conference at Tel Aviv University are:
• Production of plastic from corn - the conference will present the possibility of using corn not only as fuel for engines (ethanol), but also to produce special plastic - and this as a replacement for plastic derived from petroleum. This innovation will be presented by the American scientist Dr. David Henton, currently the chairman of the "Nature-Works" company, one of the largest in the world in the field of using corn and other crops instead of oil. Corn-derived plastic can be used for packaging and in the textile industry. The advantage of the plastic in question is its ability to completely decompose in nature without polluting water sources and releasing hazardous substances into the environment.
• A substance for neutralizing biological weapons - at the conference, an environmentally friendly substance called Fe-Taml, patented by Prof. Terry Collins from the Institute of Green Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA, will be revealed, which is intended, among other things, to neutralize biological weapons such as anthrax.
Dr. Aryeh Nesher, the academic director of the Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University, says that the "Green Chemistry" conference is the first scientific conference of its kind to be held in Israel. "The conference will present, among other things, current data regarding industrial chemicals, not only that they harm human and animal health and cause cancer to the point of death - exposure to them irreversibly harms the offspring as well, meaning that this is a future harm, in future generations," says Nesher .
According to Dr. Nesher, these are chemical substances whose inherent dangers have only been discovered in recent decades. The great majority of them are found in various industrial uses and severely damage the tissue cells of the body, causing damage to the genetic material, the DNA - such as creating genetic mutations or stopping the activity of genes.
"Green chemistry", especially everything related to the development of environmentally friendly substances that are not dangerous to human health, is a challenging and innovative field in the world and is taking its first steps in Israel as well. Scientists and research institutions are currently engaged in the search and development of replacement technologies and processes for the tens of thousands of chemicals that are currently in widespread and daily use in industry, when it turned out that for 99% of them there is still no detailed and tested information, for example, regarding their degree of toxicity. The result: it is very possible that clusters of morbidity that doctors encounter today in various places - including lung diseases, cancer, neurodegeneration and others - were caused by one or another environmental exposure to the dangerous substances, many of which, as mentioned, are suspected of being carcinogenic.
The development of green chemistry is stimulated by the countries of the European Union and Scandinavia, some of the countries of the USA (Michigan, California), Canada and also Japan. In addition to legislation aimed at reducing, until complete elimination, the use of toxic chemicals, they encourage academic research initiatives and revolutionary industrial developments, which will gradually replace most - if not all - of the dangerous chemicals.
Among the other guests from abroad who come especially to this conference: Prof. Peter Sundin from Uppsala University in Sweden and Prof. Richard Smith from the Research Center for Supercritical Fluid Technology at Tohoku University in Japan, who also serves as the editor of an international scientific journal dealing with this innovative field of chemistry. A series of Israeli scientists and other experts will speak at the conference on various topics related to "green chemistry".
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It is not written what the technology was that was invented to clean up infections