Nanopowders, Thin Films, and Devices

Green Solvent WizardTM Demo Trial Version: Click the GSW Download button to download our 21 day trial demo. Solvent Replacement Overview Organic solvents have been central to many technologies used to improve the quality of life. They are used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, coatings and consumer products, to name a few. With the current trend to legislatively ban the use of many of the more harmful organic solvents, coupled with voluntary elimination of other solvents used in industry, chemists are faced with finding new ways to produce products with the same performance and cost that consumers and industry have come to expect. The Green Solvent WizardTM software introduces a predictive approach that can be used to maximize the benefit gained from the relatively small list of benign organic solvents that are still acceptable to use. This is accomplished by using mixtures of benign organic solvents and optimizing the mixture's composition for the solubility of a given solute. Maximizing the solubility reduces the amount of solvent required, thus reducing both environmental impact and cost. Industry is under ever increasing pressure to replace organic solvents that have been in use for decades with more benign alternatives that have lower toxicity and pose less threat to the environment. Many solvents have been banned from use by various governments due to environmental concerns. Of the solvents that remain, many companies have begun to ban the use of solvents that were once mainstays of formulation chemistry in order to reduce the costs of regulatory compliance. Faced with a reduced list of solvent choices, one alternative is to make greater use of solvent mixtures. Mixed organic solvents have the advantage that the properties of the mixture can be adjusted by varying the relative amount of each component in the mixture. In this way, formulation chemists gain access to an entire spectrum of solvent properties. Not only can solvent mixtures be found to replace undesirable pure solvents, but in most cases, the mixture composition can be optimized to exceed the performance of the undesirable pure component that is to be replaced. With support from the National Science Foundation, nGimat has developed The Green Solvent WizardTM software for formulating mixtures of benign solvents that can replace more harmful solvents in industrial applications, while generally exceeding the performance of any pure solvent. This capability allows industrial solvent users to generate candidate solvent mixtures, which can then be optimized for composition using Design-of-Experiments (DOE) for mixtures. nGimat has successfully demonstrated this type of optimization approach to maximize the solubility of a commonly used platinum catalyst precursor [1]. Figure 1 shows the results of this optimization, with an optimum solubility for the platinum precursor Pt(acac)2 occurring in mixtures of acetone, propylene carbonate and THN. The software features a straightforward, easy to learn user interface. Figure 1: Quaternary contour plot of the concentration of saturated solutions of Pt(acac)2 at 25 °C in mixtures of acetone (φ1), cyclohexanol (φ2), propylene carbonate (φ3) and THN (φ4) vs. solvent volume fraction. The legend indicates the concentration in units of 10-3 moles L-1. The plot is cut across the midsection (φ4 = 0.3) to reveal the interior contours. The maximum molar concentration is calculated to be 68.9 x 10-3 moles L-1 at φ1 = 0.406, φ2 = 0, φ3 = 0.187 and φ4 = 0.407. References 1. S. Flanagan, E. Hall, W. Bowie, J. W. Fuhs, R. Logan, F. Maniei, A. Hunt, Green Chem., 7 (5), 333-338 (2005). Contact Information For a free trial version of the software please contact: nGimat Co. 5315 Peachtree Industrial Blvd. Chamblee, GA 30341 678-287-2400 678-287-3999 (fax) customer@ngimat.com www.ngimat.com Screen Shots Features, Advantages and Benefits of the Green Solvent WizardTM Features Advantages Benefits Prediction of solvent blends for metal-organic compounds Reduced time spent on solution formulation Reduced time to market for new products Contains a database of solvents and physical properties needed for solubility prediction Eliminates time spent searching literature Reduced time to market for new products Contains a database of known solubilities Ensures the user is provided with the most accurate data available. Eliminates time spent searching the literature Improves formulation success rate. Reduces time to market for new products User can control which solvents to select from The optimum mixture ratios can be calculated for any desired set of solvents Flexibility in solvent choice makes for easier compliance with changing regulatory restrictions User can control which solvents to select from The optimum mixture ratios can be calculated for any desired set of solvents Process limitations on solvent selection can be more easily worked around User input of additional solvents Allows expansion of the existing solvent property database Allows the use of new, unusual or proprietary solvents that may not be in the database User input of solubility data Allows expansion of the existing solubility database Allows the user to improve predictions for compounds for which he has collected data already Minimum Hardware requirements: 500-MHz Intel Pentium-class processor or higher 256 MB of RAM 200 MB of available hard disk space Display 800 x 600 or higher-resolution display CD-ROM drive Minimum Software requirements: Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows ME, and Windows NT Service Pack 6a, Windows XP All operating systems should be up to date Purchase Green Solvent Wizard nGimat Home