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About NETI
Mission
Rather than conventional, costly, and regulation-driven "end-of-the-pipe"
waste treatment and disposal methods, NETI focuses on "green chemistry"
research, designing and modifying processes to prevent pollution by
either eliminating byproducts or finding productive uses for them within
the manufacturing process itself. NETI promotes and funds long-term
research to minimize or eliminate pollution from industrial processes.
Research addresses process design innovation to achieve improved yield
and material substitutions for environmental and economic gains. Each
research project involves one or more industry partners working to develop
innovative process design changes for industry operations. To accomplish
its legislative mandate for pollution prevention technologies NETI:
- Develops and assists in the transfer of existing and new process
designs;
- Conducts research, development, and demonstration projects for
new or modified industrial process design equipment and technologies
for waste prevention;
- Provides a clearinghouse for disseminating information on existing
and new industrial process design technologies for the Commonwealth,
industry, and governmental entities; and
- Provides expertise and assistance on industrial process design
environmental technologies to public officials responsible for establishing
government policy and regulations.
Research - Partnering - Educating Students
- To date, NETI has funded 39 projects in pollution prevention research
totaling approximately $4.0 million.
- NETI has partnered with 52 companies and 3 federal partners who
have provided an additional $2.5 million in in-kind and direct support.
- NETI draws on research faculty from diverse disciplines, to date
involving faculty from eight departments in three colleges on the
Amherst campus - Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Civil & Environmental
Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Mechanical &
Industrial Engineering, Microbiology, Polymer Science & Engineering,
and Environmental Health Sciences.
- More than 550 students have benefited from NETI research projects
as post-doctorates, graduate students, and undergraduates in the research
lab and classroom.
History
The impetus for NETI's creation came from the Massachusetts Chemistry
and Technology Alliance (MCTA), a chemical industry trade group, which
was investigating the potential of industrial ecology approaches (which
mimic nature's closed-loops, in which byproducts fertilize new growth
instead of becoming waste) instead of costly existing waste treatment
and disposal methods. In 1993, MCTA approached UMass Amherst proposing
a three-way research partnership among the university, industry, and
government. The vision was a research center addressing chemical industry
problems in materials selection and process control. UMass Amherst was
the logical site for the Institute with its' worldwide reputation as
a leader in process redesign to minimize and prevent pollution and in
polymer research. Teaming with the Environmental Institute, then Representative
Douglas Petersen (D-Marblehead) and then Senator Robert Durand (D-Marlboro),
NETI received legislative approval in 1994 as a partner in the Massachusetts
Strategic Envirotechnology Partnership (STEP), a collaboration between
the University of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Executive Office
of Environmental Affairs.
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