Priority research

Other Pyrochemical Processes. The chemistry of pyrochemi-cal separation processes is another fertile area of research e.g., new molten salt systems, scrub alloys, etc. and the behavior of plutonium in these systems. Studies of liquid plutonium metal processes should also be explored, such as filtration methods to remove impurities. Since Rocky Flats uses plutonium in the metal form, methods to convert plutonium compounds to metal and purify the metal directly are high-priority research projects. 

The net result of an additional investment of resources in chemical engineering should be the creation of three balanced portfolios one of priority research areas, one of sources of funding for research, one of mechanisms by which that funding can be provided. 

The eight priority research areas described above constitute the committee s recommendation of a balanced portfolio of research areas on the frontiers of the discipline. 

TABLE 1.1 High-Priority Research Frontiers and Initiatives"... 

The committee s balanced portfoho of priority research areas has already been discussed in the Executive Summary and the preceding chapters of the report. A discussion of the portfolio of funding sources is presented later in this chapter and, more comprehensively, in Appendix A. The following section discusses the committee s views on a balanced portfolio of support mechanisms. 

A similar overview of German activities in 1998 is provided in [65]. The German working party on micro-reaction technology is presented, a federal funding program is introduced, and three top-priority research projects are presented. They show the activities at the edge of acceptance by industry. 

This research was supported by NIH grants (1 R43 GM62077-01, 2R44 GM62077-02, 5R GM62077-3) to XZ and a WPI R D priority research fund. 

Data are scarce in mammals that link zinc concentrations in tissues with environmental zinc perturbations. In harbor porpoises, impaired homeostasis reportedly occurs when zinc exceeds 100 mg/kg FW liver however, livers of many species of marine mammals routinely exceed this value (Wood and Van Vleet 1996). Elevated zinc concentrations, in mg Zn/kg DW tissue, were >120 in cattle liver, >180 in sheep kidney, and >250 in sheep liver (Table 9.9), but their significance is unclear. No international regulations or guidelines applicable to zinc are available (USPHS 1989). No U.S. Food and Drug Administration action level or other maximum acceptable concentration exists for zinc, and therefore no Final Residue Value can be calculated (USEPA 1987). This seems to be a high priority research need. 

No published data were available on effects and fate of famphur in aquatic ecosystems. This seems to be a high-priority research need in view of the increasing and illegal use of famphur to kill migratory waterfowl (White et al. 1989). In the absence of these data, it is recommended that concentrations of famphur and famoxon in water and in tissues of aquatic organisms not exceed current analytical detection limits of 0.005 mg/L in water or 0.01 mg/kg FW tissue. 

Roundtable members published a common industry view on key areas of green chemistry research [12]. Each year the Roundtable awards a research grant to an academic to work on one of the priority research areas identified by its members. These grants are open to any academic and are awarded by a research panel comprising selected members of the Roundtable. A list of research areas funded so far is presented in Table 16.2. It should be noted that any results of these Roundtable projects are to be published, for all to adopt, free from any IP license. 

The importance of recognition chemistry has been highlighted in several of the previous sections. Developments in recognition chemistry are important for the design of in situ sensors and are a high-priority research area. In practice, the surfaces or membranes of any in situ sensing device will contain chemical soecies that interact selectively and reversibly with... 

At the LEAA-sponsored FBI National Symposium on Crime Laboratory Development held in December, 1973, crime laboratory directors from around the country selected several priority research areas. The Institute has been able to respond to most of the high priority areas in the form of new grants addressing blood, semen and hair characterization. 

If and when extensive new hydrogen transmission pipelines are needed in the decades ahead, research in such areas as lower-cost pipeline materials, technology for dual-use natural gas-and-hydrogen pipeline connection techniques, layout optimization, and even pipeline emplacement technologies may be of significant value. However, the committee sees this as a priority research area only to the extent that such efforts directly benefit distributed production techniques, which are expected to dominate over the next 20 to 30 years. 

The value of cultured stem cells to toxicology is in their promise as a continuous source of cells that can be induced to express a chosen cell-type-specific mature phenotype. This achievement would address two current limitations in safety testing scarcity of metabolically competent human systems and use of experimental animals. Numerous culture additives and conditions have been identified that cause commitment and partial differentiation along specific lineages, such as retinoic-acid-induced neuronal commitment of mouse embryonic stem cells. However, definition of conditions that produce fully differentiated cells with cell-type-specific function quantitatively similar to that of intact tissue remains problematic and is a high-priority research area in toxicology. 

Improvements in existing control technology for fine particulates and the development of advanced techniques are top-priority research goals. Conventional control devices have certain limitations. Precipitators, for example, are limited by the magnitude of charge on... 

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