There are many online tools offering help with finding substitutes for hazardous substances. Please contact us if you would like to see a list. Do any of these tools offer substantial help?
Perhaps the clearest and most helpful individual web-location is a guide from the Swedish Centre for Chemical Substitution (source).
There now follows a review of what it offers, in summary: Sweden has put together a very helpful structure to help innovations be developed and commercialised, but, just like all the other tools, it does not set out the methods or even general principles by which new non-hazardous chemical science is identified and explored. GCD can help!
The Substitution Guide is set out in logical steps:
Step 1. Gather chemical content information
Step 2. Identify unwanted substances in your goods
Step 3. Identify possible alternatives
Step 4. Assess alternatives
Step 5. Develop new alternatives
This last step is the crucial one, because steps 1 to 4 are usually very easily covered: if a substitute is available then most users would know long before it was part of an online tool!
Does this site give help with development of alternatives? It sets out further advice
5.1 Use test beds to verify new alternatives. A testbed is an environment where companies, academia and other organizations can collaborate in the development, testing and introduction of new products or processes. This is a great idea, and acknowledges that companies will have the original thinking behind a novel solution.
5.2 Monitor new alternatives. This one is rather naïve: a good alternative will soon find a place in the market.
5.3 Share positive examples. Again, very nice thought but not really the commercial reality.
5.4 Raise the need for knowledge and research. The Substitution Centre seeks to bring people together – again, a helpful approach.
5.5 Innovation Incubator. Another initiative to help the innovator.
5.6 Collaborate with each other and us. This is about awareness of wider initiatives.
In practical terms, 5.1 is a great idea for SMEs.
What seems to be missing is 5.0 Generate new insights and ideas. That is the precise place where Green Chemical Design wants to work with industry and academia: to make breakthroughs. Under Technical Approach we have already set out some principles and ideas, and in the near future we will expand upon those.
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