A Carnegie Mellon University professor has received the 2009 Presidential Green Challenge Chemistry Award for developing an environmentally friendly method to make polymers.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency presented the award last week to Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, Carnegie Mellon's J.C. Warner Professor of the Natural Sciences, at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

About 400 billion pounds of synthetic polymers are produced each year, and hazardous chemicals often are used. But the Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization process that Dr. Matyjaszewski developed reduced the use of copper by a factor of 1,000.

Products include coatings, adhesives, lubricants, cosmetics and electronics, with others under investigation for medical and environmental applications.