Chemistry professor Song Lin has received a 2022 Green Chemistry Challenge Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for his contributions to environmentally sustainable chemical development.

The Green Chemistry Challenge Awards, which recognize chemical technologies that incorporate the principles of green chemistry into chemical design, manufacture and use, were presented June 6 during a ceremony at the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference in Virginia.

The award recognizes Lin, Howard Milstein Faculty Fellow and associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology in the College of Arts and Sciences, for creating a new process that uses readily available substances and inexpensive electrodes to create the large and complicated molecules widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. The new technology eliminates the need to use potentially hazardous metals as catalysts that are often used to bring together smaller molecules, which has the potential to reduce both energy use and wasteful byproducts.

For years, Lin’s research group has been exploring the advantages of synthetic electrochemistry, in which electrodes pass an electrical current through a chemical reaction, providing clean energy to activate molecules.

Read the full story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.