According to the EPA, “green chemistry” is defined as:
“…The design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances. Green chemistry applies across the life cycle of a chemical product, including its design, manufacture, and use.”

DuPont owns countless patent and patent applications that would fall under the “green chemistry” definition, but unbeknownst to some, green chemistry has been an integral part of DuPont’s business strategy since the company began.

DuPont began in 1802 on the Brandywine River in Delaware. What started out as a gunpowder company with only 40 employees grew to be one of the nation’s largest companies. As an initial producer of explosives, the company was concerned with safe business practices and product stewardship starting on day one.

“It’s built into the company’s DNA,” Dr. Henry Bryndza, Director of Bio-Chemical Sciences and Engineering at DuPont noted. DuPont expanded rapidly within its first century of commercialization and continued its commitment to employee and consumer health and safety; the company established the first industrial toxicology lab in North America, dedicated to product stewardship.

In the early 1990’s, convinced that environmental stewardship went hand-in-hand with good business practices, DuPont created a set of environmental goals to be reached by 2010. By 2006, under the guidance of CEO Chad Holliday, the company had met or exceeded all of the goals, and set new goals for 2015.

Holliday realized that it was imperative to find a more sustainable way for the company and its customers to grow. He helped shape the role of research and development to one that focused on alternatives that were sustainable. DuPont abides by eleven criteria for every research project it takes on, ranging from climate change, energy use, and water consumption, to use of depleting resources.

“Green chemistry and its principles are involved in everything we do, whether it’s the next generation of drought resistant seeds, non-global warming refrigerants, or renewable polymers,” explained Bryndza.

So let’s take a closer look at a green product that’s currently in the works at DuPont: Solamet® metallization pastes. DuPont Solamet® photovoltaic metallization pastes are used in manufacturing solar cells and are designed to raise their efficiency.

The pastes are protected by a variety of patents, including composition patents that cover silver compositions that are used on the front side of solar cells and aluminium compositions used on the back side surface, for example US Patent No. 8,158,504, entitled Conductive Compositions and Processes for use in the Manufacture of Semiconductor Devices–Organic Medium Components.

“DuPont is a leading innovator of photovoltaic (PV) metallizations, sold under the Solamet(r) brand, which have been instrumental in nearly doubling the efficiency of solar cells over the past dozen years,” said Peter Brenner, global photovoltaics marketing manager, DuPont Microcircuit Materials.

“DuPont has been granted nearly 200 patents related to photovoltaic applications globally since the start of 2008, and we have over thirteen hundred patent applications pending in this area globally. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year focused on advancing the efficiency, lifetime and cost competitiveness of solar energy to reduce global dependence on fossil fuels, and as we continue to develop new technology, we need to ensure it is protected.”

DuPont Microcircuit Materials recently filed two lawsuits against PV paste supplier Heraeus and one against its customer SolarWorld, for infringing on DuPont patents for Solamet® photovoltaic metallization pastes.

“We do not ignore theft and infringement and we will aggressively pursue other points in the supply chain where IP theft and infringement exists, including the production and sale of downstream products which incorporate ‘infringing’ materials by cell and module makers, as well as PV system developers, installers and owners,” stated Brenner.

Patent infringement in the clean tech industry is a hot issue, especially since research and development occur so rapidly. However, DuPont is sure to produce many interesting products in the upcoming decades, all while staying true to sustainable business practices.

* Rosemary Ostfeld is a contributor to Green Patent Blog.  Rosemary recently completed both her undergraduate and graduate education at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.  She will be studying Environmental Policy at the University of Cambridge this fall.

OrganoWorld, a company based in Montreal, Canada, has developed a wind turbine able to harness energy at low wind speeds.

Concerned about the effects of global climate change, chemical engineer Frederick Churchill began to explore the use of wind energy.  He carried out preliminary research for his technology with the assistance of personnel and research facilities at both the University of Montreal, and the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi.

The Winga e-Jetstream Generator design converges low wind onto an annular rotor, and diverges it to create a large augmentation of the wind velocity.  While a three-wing rotor would only be able to create 51.1 W/m² from a mean wind velocity of 4.4 m/s, the Winga e-Jetstream Generator would be able to create as much 26,168.5 W/m². 

The following diagram depicts the technology:

According to Cleantech PatentEdge™, OrganoWorld owns six international, or PCT, applications, including applications directed to various features of its wind turbine:  Interational Application No. PCT/CA2009/000797 for the apparatus to increase fluid velocity in a fluid turbine, International Application No. PCT/CA2009/001641 for the fluid directing system for turbines, and International Appication No. PCT/CA2009/001649 for the annular multi rotor double wall turbine, among others. 

Additional patent applications are also underway. 

One technical problem, relating to early boundary layer separation in the diffuser, has been overcome, making this a fully scalable technology.

The company is seeking funding to build a 250 kW commercial prototype with the hopes of making wind power more accessible for commercial building owners, universities, and off-grid locations.  According to Churchill, the company is currently exploring opportunities in the Caribbean and in Germany.

* Rosemary Ostfeld is a contributor to Green Patent Blog.  Rosemary recently completed both her undergraduate and graduate education at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.  She double majored in Biology, and Earth & Environmental Sciences as an undergraduate, and received her Master’s in Earth & Environmental Sciences.

 Biogas & Electric, located in San Diego, California, has developed technology that reduces harmful emissions created during anaerobic digestion.

Anaerobic digestion may serve as a renewable energy source, and reduce methane when utilized at wastewater treatment plants, dairies, and landfills. Seth Burns was intrigued by benefits of turning waste to a resource, but realized one of the biggest challenges for the anaerobic digester industry was to reduce the harmful emissions generated by the process.

Stringent standards enforced by the California Air and Resources Board (CARB), and other regional air boards require the reduction of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emitted during the anerobic digestion process. NOx is known to cause an array of health problems including asthma.

In an effort to make the anaerobic digestion process more environmentally sound, Mike Matelich, process chemist and inventor of the process, and Burns partnered to develop a way to reduce NOx and SOx emissions.

The technology is an add-on solution to the biogas engine. The add-on puts the biogas engine exhaust in contact with the liquid waste stream from the anaerobic digester.

“Mike determined that certain chemicals are endogenous to the waste stream, such as ammonia, which can scrub the NOx out of the exhaust stream,” stated Burns.

The bench scale prototype chemical reaction that occurs reduces NOx and SOx, the precursors to smog and acid rain respectively, by greater than 95% each.

Burns and Matelich hope to replicate these results in the field at full scale. The following diagram outlines the process:

U.S. Patent No. 8,012,746, entitled “NOx Removal Systems for Biogas Engines at Anaerobic Digestion Facilities,” describes the Biogas and Electric technology (‘746 Patent).

According to Burns, a provisional patent application was filed at the end of December 2009. The non-provisional, filed September 15, 2010, enjoyed accelerated examination via the now-defunct U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Green Technology Pilot Program (GTPP) (read about some fast track alternatives post-GTPP here). The ‘746 Patent issued September 6, 2011, just under a year from the non-provisional filing date.

The company has received funding from USDA-NIFA SBIR Phase I and Phase II research grants and from Waste Management. A full-scale dairy-based demonstration project is being constructed in Imperial County, California. The technology will be utilized on a 300 kW biogas engine.

Previous technologies have only been able to reduce NOx to 9ppm, but Burns and Matelich are confident that their technology will be able to reduce NOx emissions enough to meet the stringent CARB standard of 2 ppm.

Burns and Matelich plan to build a demo project within the wastewater treatment industry, and begin installing their solution for revenue.

* Rosemary Ostfeld is a contributor to Green Patent Blog.  Rosemary recently completed both her undergraduate and graduate education at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.  She double majored in Biology, and Earth & Environmental Sciences as an undergraduate, and received her Master’s in Earth & Environmental Sciences.

By spending years in the flywheel industry, Jim Fiske learned a great deal about grid-scale energy storage and its true requirements. After determining that flywheels were not the best option, he and the investor of his flywheel company founded Gravity Power. Gravity Power’s technology has the potential to change energy storage worldwide.

Presently, pumped hydro provides nearly all grid-scale energy storage, but requires vast quantities of water, two very large reservoirs, and extreme differences in land elevation. It can be difficult to fulfill all three necessary parameters, and a big plant can cost over a billion dollars with delayed financial returns.

Gravity Power’s technology is similar to the concept behind pumped hydro, but overcomes many of pumped hydro’s limitations. Each Gravity Power Module is a closed system that operates underground. Thus, once the device is initially filled with water, no additional water is needed. A 40MW unit is 30 meters in diameter and 500 meters deep, while a 250 MW unit is 80 meters in diameter and 500 meters deep.

To generate energy, the piston drops, and forces the water through a Francis-style pump-turbine that drives a motor/generator. To store energy, energy from the grid causes the pump to force water down the pipe and lift the piston.  The following figure from Gravity Power’s website illustrates the process:

According to Fiske, Chief Technology Officer and Founder of Gravity Power, the company is currently doing a deep cost-analysis of the technology. The bigger the unit, the more cost-effective it becomes. Mr. Fiske anticipates that a 250 MW storage device would cost approximately 250 million dollars.

The company is currently seeking additional investors, and countries including Germany, South Africa, China, and India are interested in utilizing the technology. Utilization of this type of energy storage could help compensate for the variability of wind power and other renewable energy generation techniques.

The company currently has patent applications for its technology all over the world. According to Cleantech PatentEdge™, LaunchPoint Technologies, from which Gravity Power was spun out, owns seven U.S., International, and European patents and applications.

U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0193808 (‘808 Application) lists LaunchPoint as the owner of record. Entitled “System and method for storing energy,” the ‘808 Application relates to an energy storage system in which electricity can be generated by gravitational movement of a slidable piston.  The claims of the ‘808 Application were recently allowed, and the company anticipates that a patent will issue in the next few weeks, with several others in the works.

The company’s goal is to complete a small-scale demonstration module first to verify the technology. According to Mr. Fiske, one of the great benefits is that the units can be easily built by civil engineering companies all over the world because no exotic materials are needed – just concrete and steel. The technology is based on existing technologies, but this will be the first time the pieces will be combined in this particular way.

“A big advantage of our technology is its level of efficiency. Efficiency is expected to exceed that of pumped hydro, and be as high as 83%. In addition, it is quite feasible to build many gigawatts of storage per year due to the ease of construction of the Gravity Power Modules,” stated Mr. Fiske. Sounds like an energy storage device with great potential.

* Rosemary Ostfeld is a contributor to Green Patent Blog.  Rosemary recently completed both her undergraduate and graduate education at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.  She double majored in Biology, and Earth & Environmental Sciences as an undergraduate, and received her Master’s in Earth & Environmental Sciences.

As oil prices soar, the exploration of alternative fuel sources continues. Primus Green Energy, based in Hillsborough, New Jersey, has created a high quality, 93-octane bio-gasoline at a price that will be both competitive and profitable once production is scaled up.

According to Dr. George Boyajian, Primus Green Energy’s VP of Business Development, the company has numerous patent applications related to gasification, and the application of liquid fuel synthesis technology. The patent applications are in various stages of the application process, Dr. Boyajian stated, but he expects that several will be published by the end of this year.

Primus Green Energy’s technology can create 93-octane bio-gasoline from biomass or natural gas. Thus, the plant can still produce bio-gasoline using natural gas if needed, and will still yield the same high-quality product.

Miscanthus, an energy grass that can grow up to 15 tons per acre each year and does not displace fuel crops, is the biomass of choice.

The following diagram from the company website illustrates the basic process Primus Green Energy utilizes to create bio-gasoline:

First, the biomass is placed into a gasifier with steam, and through a thermochemical process, turns the substances into a syngas. The syngas is made of hydrogen gas and carbon monoxide. The syngas is then scrubbed to take out sulfur and carbon dioxide. A liquid fuel synthesis finally converts the syngas to 93-octane.

According to Dr. Boyajian, “The key to making the process efficient is having a ratio of 2.2 to 1 of hydrogen to carbon monoxide.” 93-octane is good for refiners and blenders due to its low vapor pressure, low corrosion, good cold flow properties, good lubricity, the right amount of aromatics, and low benzene.

The company currently has a pilot plant in Hillsborough, New Jersey that produces several kilograms of gasoline each hour, according to Dr. Boyajian. The continuous demonstration plant, which is also in Hillsborough, is currently under construction and will produce 30 kg of gasoline each hour upon completion. 

Recently, Primus Green Energy received a $12 million investment to complete its continuous demonstration plant. See the Bloomberg article for more information.

In 2013, Primus Green Energy expects to break ground on a commercial plant that will produce as much as 4.5 million gallons of bio-gasoline annually. The following pictures are of the Hillsborough, New Jersey plant:

Primus Green Energy’s lead investor is IC Green, a green energy arm of Israel Corporation, and the company’s engineering procurement construction contractor is Bechtel Corporation. The company also has an array of other partnerships with companies including Echotherm, ECO Energy, and Lockheed Martin.

Dr. Boyajian is confident in the technology and states, “Primus Green Energy makes gasoline and only gasoline. It is a high quality 93-octane gasoline that will be competitively priced and profitable, even if oil is only 60-70 dollars per barrel. Yields have been demonstrated repeatedly at 27% by weight, and yields are expected to reach 33%.”

* Rosemary Ostfeld is a contributor to Green Patent Blog.  Rosemary recently completed both her undergraduate and graduate education at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.  She double majored in Biology, and Earth & Environmental Sciences as an undergraduate, and received her Master’s in Earth & Environmental Sciences.

 

Hydrovolts, a Washington-based company, specializes in hydrokinetic turbines.  The company has created turbines that can be used to generate energy in canals, waterfalls, and remote locations.

Hydrovolts owns U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0237626 (‘626 Application), entitled “Hinged blade cross-axis turbine for hydroelectric power generation” and directed to a water turbine having pivotable blades.

Water turbine (120) is disposed in frame (110), and a turbine shaft axis (122) lies in the center of the frame (110).  The frame is connected to two electric power generators (105), found on either side of the device.

The technology’s pivoting blades (126 A, B, C & D), which Hydrovolts calls the flipwing rotor, differentiate it from most other turbines. As water (90) flows through the device, it comes in contact with blades that pivot around blade axes (125).

The pivoting nature of the blades allows for a high level of blade surface area to maintain contact with the water as it flows through the device.

According to the ‘626 Application, this innovation provides several important advantages.  First, less force is required to move each blade because each blade has its own axis in addition to a central axis.

Also, more energy can be harnessed than in a device made of the same amount of material without pivoting blades. 

Finally, lifting forces drive the device, allowing for it to operate in low flow conditions while many other turbines have a “stall-speed,” or minimum speed required to drive the device.

See a video of a Hydrovolts hydrokinetic turbine in action here and this Greentech Media piece about the company’s plan to generate hydropower from wastewater treatment plants.

Rosemary Ostfeld is a contributor to Green Patent Blog.  Rosemary recently completed both her undergraduate and graduate education at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.  She double majored in Biology, and Earth & Environmental Sciences as an undergraduate, and received her Master’s in Earth & Environmental Sciences.

Beacon Power is a Massachusetts company that makes flywheel-based energy storage systems. 

Rockland Capital, a private equity firm, recently purchased Beacon Power, including a Stephentown, New York, flywheel plant project.  The purpose of the project is to allow excess energy from the grid to be stored at the plant, and then re-emitted at a later time when energy demand increases.

According to Cleantech PatentEdge™, Beacon Power Corporation is listed as the owner of record on 69 U.S., European, and international (PCT) patents and published applications.

U.S. Patent No. 6,614,132 (‘132 Patent), entitled “Multiple flywheel energy storage system,” describes an energy storage system comprising a plurality of flywheel systems, while U.S. Patent No. 8,008,804 (‘804 Patent) is entitled “Methods, systems and apparatus for regulating frequency of generated power using flywheel energy storage systems with varying load and/or power generation” and describes how frequency can be regulated using flywheels.

In the invention of the ‘132 Patent, each flywheel energy storage system unit (100) generates kinetic energy by spinning at a constant rate and drives a motor/generator (104).  According to Beacon’s web site, the company’s Smart Energy 25 flywheel can rotate at speeds of up to 16,000 rpm.

A bi-directional inverter (108), which can convert AC to DC power and vice-versa, is connected to the motor/generator (104). These components are then linked to a control processor (112) that can control the power output of the system.

A connector circuit combines each of the systems.  In a Beacon Smart Energy Matrix, 10 flywheels are connected.

The ‘804 Patent relates to methods for regulating the AC frequency of the electrical power to be supplied by the flywheels to the grid.

By tracking long-term variations in the power being utilized by the grid, it can then be determined when it would be best to have the flywheels in either power-generating or power-absorbing mode.  Thus, if the grid is in need of more energy, the flywheels can shift into power-generating mode.

Rosemary Ostfeld is a contributor to Green Patent Blog.  Rosemary recently completed both her undergraduate and graduate education at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.  She double majored in Biology, and Earth & Environmental Sciences as an undergraduate, and received her Master’s in Earth & Environmental Sciences.