The Environmental Protection Agency has honored the University of Delaware's Richard Wool with its Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for his extensive work developing bio-based materials to support the green energy infrastructure.

 

Wool, UD professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of the Affordable Composites from Renewable Resources (ACRES) program, is a world leader in developing safer chemical substances from renewable resources through processes that require less water and energy, and produce less hazardous waste compared to petroleum-based processes.

 

The products can be used as adhesives, composites and foams -- even circuit boards, hurricane resistant energy efficient roofs and leather substitutes.

 

One of Wool's more recent inventions is a breathable, bio-based eco-leather that avoids the traditional leather tanning process. This environmentally-friendly product, developed as a collaboration between researchers in Wool's ACRES group and colleagues in UD's fashion and apparel studies department, has resulted in collaborations with well-known companies such as Nike, Puma and others to use the leather substitute in their products. He shares a patent with Nike on the development of its new environmentally friendly air bubbles for athletic shoe wear.