N16

CFC Substitutes - a New Range of

Products

A massive programme for the substitu-

tion of CFCs by the year 2000 has been

initiated on a worldwide scale under the

direction of the United Nations, involving

scientists, politicians and industrialists.

This involves a unique challenge for the

chemical industry.

Elf Atochem, the world’s second largest

producer of CFCs, has invested heavily in

the research and production of substitutes.

This effort is already approaching 2 billion

French francs and will reach 3 billion

French francs by the end of the conversion

process, This work has resulted in the de-

velopment of new fluorinated compounds,

HFAs, meeting the objectives of safety and

the environment as well as best satisfying

the needs of the consumer. These pro-

ducts permit the maintenance of the quality

of our daily lives: e.g. refrigerators, air con-

ditioning, energy efficiency thanks to insu-

lating foams, and reliability of electronic

appliances due to solvents. According to

a press-release Elf Atochem has made

massive investments at Pierre-Benite

where new production sites for substitutes

are scheduled to go on stream by mid-

1992. The plants will produce 40,000

mt/year of HCFC 141 b and HCFC 142b

and 8000 mt/year of HCFC 134a. More-

over, a 40 million Ibs/year HCFC 134a plant

will be built to come on stream by 1995 in

the USA.

Japan Prize to Gerhard Ertl

Professor Gerhard Ertl of the Fritz-

Haber-lnstitut der Max Planck Gesell-

schaft, has been given the Japan Prize for

1992; he was given fifty million yen as an

extra prize. The award, sponsored by the

Science and Technology Foundation of

Japan, was established to recognize out-

standing contributions to surface science.

Professor Ertl was cited for his accom-

plishments in the field of surface elemen-

tary reactions at the surfaces of heteroge-

neous catalysts.

Catalysis Society of Japan Awards

Yoshihiko Moro-oka, Professor at the

Research Laboratory of Resources Utiliza-

tion at Tokyo Institute of Technology, has

received a Chemical Society of Japan

Award for 1992. The award was estab-

lished to recognize his outstanding con-

tributions to the study of the activation of

dioxygen and of catalytic oxidation reac-

tions. It was given in particular as recogni-

tion of his work on catalytic oxidation reac-

tions with molecular oxygen and their reac-

tion mechanisms, organometallic ap-

proaches to Cl-chemistry for the produc-

tion of oxygenates, and the preparation

and reactions of dioxygen complexes rele-

vant to biological systems,

Syuichi Kagawa, Professor in the De-

partment of Industrial Chemistry of Naga-

saki University, and Makoto Misono, Pro-

fessor in the Department of Synthetic

Chemistry of the University of Tokyo, have

also been given Catalysis Society of Japan

Awards for 1992. Professor Kagawa is

cited as having contributed to the study of

the characteristic properties of surface

oxygen species and their application in

chemical reactions. Professor Misono is

cited as having contributed to the study of

metal oxide catalysts, and the relationship

applied catalysis A: General Volume 87 No. 2 - 19 August 1992