Green Solvent Enhancement
Liquid and superficial carbon dioxide have attracted a great deal of interest as environmentally benign solvents, but their practical use has been limited by the need for high CO2 pressures to dissolve even small amounts of polar, amphiphilic, organometallic, or high-molecular-mass compounds. So called "CO2-philes" efficiently transport insoluble or poorly soluble materials into CO2 solvent, resulting in the development of a broad range of CO2-based processes. But as the most effective CO2-philes are expensive fluorocarbons, such as poly (perfluoroether), the commercialization of otherwise promising CO2-based processes has been met with only limited success.

Dr. Beckman at work in his lab
Dr. Beckman and his research personnel have shown that copolymers can act as efficient, non-fluorous CO2- philes if their constituent monomers are chosen to optimize the balance between the enthalpy and entropy of solute-copolymer and copolymer- copolymer interactions. Guided by heuristic rules regarding these interactions, researchers have used inexpensive propylene and CO2 to synthesize a series of poly(ether-carbonate) copolymers that readily dissolve in CO2 at low pressures. To summarize the importance of his research, Dr. Beckman explained, "we expect that our design principles can be used to create a wide range if non-fluorous CO2-philes from low-cost raw materials, thus rendering a variety of CO2-based processes economically favorable, particularly in cases where recycling of CO2-philes is difficult."