nGimat Releases Solvent Replacement Software Enabling Formulation of Benign Organic Solvents to Replace Harmful Solvents in Industrial and Consumer Products

nGimat, with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), has developed the Green Solvent Wizard™ software for formulating mixtures of benign organic solvents that can replace more harmful organic solvents traditionally used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, coatings and consumer products.

ATLANTA, GA (PRWEB) May 17, 2006 -- nGimat, with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), has developed the Green Solvent Wizard™ software for formulating mixtures of benign organic solvents that can replace more harmful organic solvents traditionally used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, coatings and consumer products.

NSF supports a broad range of research projects, known collectively as “green chemistry.” It has stated that the most immediate of green chemistry’s many goals is to reduce or eliminate the use of toxic solvents, poisonous metals, corrosive chemicals and other hazardous substances.

“Industry is under ever increasing pressure to replace organic solvents that have been in use for years with more benign alternatives that have lower toxicity and pose less threat to the environment,” said Dr. Scott Flanagan, Senior Project Scientist for nGimat. “We developed this software to enable formulation chemists to make greater use of solvent mixtures. The properties of these mixtures can be adjusted by varying the relative amount of each component in the mixture which gives chemists access to an entire spectrum of solvent properties. In many cases, the mixture composition can be optimized to exceed the performance of the undesirable pure component that is to be replaced.”

nGimat’s Green Solvent Wizard software introduces a predictive approach that can be used to maximize the benefit gained from the relatively small list of benign organic solvents that are still acceptable. This is accomplished by using mixtures of benign organic solvents and optimizing the mixture's composition for the solubility of a given solute. Maximizing the solubility reduces the amount of solvent required, thus reducing both environmental impact and cost. Industrial solvent users may generate candidate solvent mixtures, which can then be optimized for composition using Design-of-Experiments (DOE) for mixtures.

“The Green Solvent Wizard software can also be tailored to the specific product line requirements for solvent manufacturers or individual companies,” said Flanagan. “Enterprise licenses are available as well.”

The Green Solvent Wizard software runs on the Windows operating system and features an intuitive, easy to use interface. For a free trial version of the software, contact nGimat at www.ngimat.com.

About nGimat

nGimat Co. is a manufacturer and innovator of engineered nanomaterials. Through its NanoSpraySM Combustion Processing technology, the company develops and produces nanopowders, thin films, and devices that incorporate these materials. The company currently has a portfolio of 38 U.S. patents, 49 non-U.S. patents, and is also processing about 125 patent applications. For more information about the company, please visit www.ngimat.com.

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