Welcome to Green Chemistry at Carolina. In our continuing efforts to make your lab safer, we've created this Web page with information, resources, and product suggestions you can use. Look here first for tips on how to make your lab greener for you and your students.

What is Green Chemistry?
Green Chemistry is a set of principles to help you minimize the hazardous substances used in chemical processes or that result from chemical processes.

What are the principles?
For your convenience, we are reprinting here (with permission of Oxford University Press) the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry.

How do I start?
The principles provide a new perspective on the use of chemicals. Use the 12 principles as your guide when developing new procedures or choosing products for your classroom. In addition, reconsider your existing procedures within the context of the principles. Look for opportunities to change how you perform a procedure, or perhaps consider a different procedure to illustrate the same concept. If you can't change your procedure, think about switching to less hazardous reagents. To make your job easier, we've identified products consistent with the principles of Green Chemistry.

Our suggestions

• Buy chemicals in quantities you will use in a year.
• Choose procedures that require chemicals you often use, rather than add a chemical only for that procedure.
• Perform procedures on the smallest scale possible.
• Use the health, flammability, and reactivity data we provide in our chemical listings to select the least hazardous option.
• If the solute dissolves in water, use an aqueous solution rather than an alcohol solution.
• Use the lowest concentration of solution that works.

See the table below for direct replacements:

Direct Chemical Replacements
Replace	With	Common Use
Cadmium	Copper	Dense metal for density studies
Chlorinated solvents	Ethyl acetate, acetone, or ethanol	Polar, organic solvent
Diethyl ether	Hexane	Non-polar, organic solvent
Lead	Copper	Dense metal for density studies
Mercury thermometer	Alcohol thermometer	Lab thermometer
Methanol	Ethanol	Polar, organic solvent
Nitrate salts	Chloride salts	Water-soluble metal salts
Petroleum ether	Hexane	Non-polar, organic solvent

Please see the table below for a complete list of green chemical replacements by substance:

Green Chemical Replacements by Substance
Substance	Replace with
Aluminum nitrate	Aluminum sulfate
Ammonium nitrate	Ammonium chloride
Calcium nitrate	Calcium chloride
Chloroform	Ethyl acetate
Cobalt nitrate	Cobalt chloride
Diethyl ether	Hexanes
Lead	Copper
Lithium nitrate	Lithium chloride
Magnesium nitrate	Magnesium chloride
Methanol	Ethanol
Methylene chloride	Ethyl acetate
Naphthalene	Lauric acid
Potassium nitrate	Potassium chloride
Sodium nitrate	Sodium chloride
Strontium nitrate	Strontium chloride
Zinc chloride	Zinc acetate
Zinc nitrate	Zinc acetate

A special note about our furniture
Two of Carolina's manufacturers, Diversified Woodcrafts, Inc. and Shain Solutions, are launching a green initiative to further enhance the steps they are already taking in caring for our environment. Read more at New Green Initiatives.

Links

• Green with Carolina
• "12 Principles of Green Chemistry" from Figure 4.1: (p.30). 12 Principles of Green Chemistry from Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice (1998) by Anastas P and Warner J. By Permission of Oxford University Press.
• American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute
• EPA Green Chemistry
• Beyond Benign