Terrence Collins

Professor Carnegie Mellon University

  • Pittsburgh PA

Terry Collins invented "TAML® Activators", the first small molecule mimics of any of the great families of oxidizing enzymes.

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Carnegie Mellon University

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Biography

A champion of sustainability science, Terry Collins is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Green Chemistry and the Director of the Institute for Green Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Collins invented "TAML® Activators", the first, full-functional, small molecule mimics of any of the great families of oxidizing enzymes. In the process, one of the great challenges of reaction chemistry has been solved—easy deployment of the mimicked efficient catalytic cycles of oxidative metabolism. Today, NewTAMLs are the best performers.

Collins learned of the insidious health damage caused by anthropogenic chemical pollutants in his native New Zealand. He launched his academic career by creating an iterative catalyst design protocol to explore whether biomimetic processes for disinfecting water could be developed to replace chlorine and avoid chlorinated disinfection products. TAML and NewTAML activators are the principal fruits, greatly outperforming the enzymes while enabling applications exhibiting or promising high technical, cost, health, environmental and fairness performances. Collins framed the argument that high health, environmental and fairness performances define sustainable chemicals and need to be integrated with comparable weight to the technical and cost performances that typically define commercial viability.

For over two decades, Terry Collins has been perfecting what is the first university course in Green Chemistry—today the class is entitled “Chemistry and Sustainability”. He has delivered over 600 public lectures and is an author on over 200 publications, mostly in peer-reviewed journals.

Collins earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from the University of Auckland. He joined the Carnegie Mellon faculty in 1987. Among his honors are the 2018 Carnegie Science Center Award for the Environment, the 2010 Heinz Award for the Environment, the inaugural Charles E. Kaufman Award of the Pittsburgh Foundation, the 2007 Award of The New York Metropolitan Catalysis Society, the USEPA’s 1999 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award, the Pittsburgh Award from the American Chemical Society, Japan’s Society of Pure and Applied Coordination Chemistry Award, and many others. Collins is a Distinguished Alumni Award recipient from the University of Auckland where he is an Honorary Professor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (Hon), the ACS, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and he received a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award.

Areas of Expertise

Chemistry and Sustainability
Oxidation Catalysis
Sustainability
Green Chemistry
Inorganic Chemistry

Media Appearances

Your Contact Lenses May Be a Hidden Source of 'Forever Chemicals'

ScienceAlert  online

2023-05-12

Terrence Collins, a chemist at Carnegie Mellon University, explains to Mamavation that fluoropolymers like PFAS are cheap and effective materials for manufacturers to use for contact lenses. But he is frustrated by the lack of federal requirements for chemical disclosures and testing.

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'Forever chemicals' found in drinking water across the US pose health risks even in small amounts, EPA says

Insider  online

2022-06-16

The EPA advisory is nonbinding, but it represents an "epic" shift in regulation, Terrence Collins, director of the Institute for Green Science at Carnegie Mellon University, told Insider.

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Terry Collins: PFAS removal discovery not yet a ‘powerful solution’

Environmental Health News  online

2022-08-25

Researchers at Northwestern University last week published a breakthrough paper in the journal Science touting a new way of destroying PFAS molecules – dubbed the “forever chemical” for its engineered longevity. Carnegie Mellon University chemist Terry Collins offers a counterpoint on the optimism.

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Social

Industry Expertise

Research
Chemicals
Education/Learning
Investment Banking

Accomplishments

The Environment Award

2018

Carnegie Science Center

Fellow

2013

American Chemical Society

Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand

2008

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Education

The University of Auckland

B.Sc.

Chemistry

1974

The University of Auckland

Ph.D.

Chemistry

1978

The University of Auckland

M.Sc.

Chemistry

1975

Affiliations

  • Sudoc : Creator-founder & Board Member

Patents

Far superior oxidation catalysts based on macrocyclic compounds

US10926248B2

2021-02-23

An especially robust compound and its derivative metal complexes that are approximately one hundred-fold superior in catalytic performance to the previously invented TAML analogs is provided having the formula:

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Articles

Designing Materials for Aqueous Catalysis: Ionic Liquid Gel and Silica Sphere Entrapped Iron-TAML Catalysts for Oxidative Degradation of Dyes

Environmental Science & Technology

2020

Materials have been developed that encapsulate a homogeneous catalyst and enable it to operate as a heterogeneous catalyst in water. A hydrophobic ionic liquid within the material was used to dissolve Fe-TAML and keep it from leaching into the aqueous phase. One-pot processes were used to entrap Fe-TAML in basic ionic liquid gels, and ionic liquid gel spheres structured via a modified Stöber synthesis forming SiO2 particles of uniform size.

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Transformative Catalysis Purifies Municipal Wastewater of Micropollutants

ACS ES&T Water

2021

We describe the use of TAML/peroxide to reduce micropollutants (MPs) in Tucson, AZ, secondary municipal wastewater. The laboratory studies establish simple-to-apply MP abatements rivaling ozone in technical performance. The approach rests on the latest-generation TAML catalyst, 2, currently the highest-technical performance H2O2 activator across both chemistry and biology. Thirty-eight MPs were examined with five 2/H2O2 treatments (50 nM 2 with 22.4 ppm H2O2, 100 nM 2 with 11.2 ppm H2O2, 100 nM 2 with 22.4 ppm H2O2, 200 nM 2 with 11.2 ppm H2O2, and 200 nM 2 with 22.4 ppm H2O2) and four ozone treatments (2, 4, 6, and 8 ppm).

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Call to restrict neonicotinoids

Science

2018

Neonicotinoids are the most widely used insecticides in the world. They are applied to a broad range of food, energy, and ornamental crops, and used in domestic pest control. Because they are neurotoxins, they are highly toxic to insects, a group of organisms that contains the majority of the described life on Earth, and which includes numerous species of vital importance to humans such as pollinators and predators of pests.

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Research Focus

DESIGN OF GREEN OXIDATION CATALYSTS

We design homogeneous oxidation catalysts to activate the natural oxidants, hydrogen peroxide and oxygen. By following an iterative design protocol, we have developed TAML activators with iron as the active metal that are outstanding peroxidase mimics, but are only about 1% the size of the enzymes. Peroxidase enzymes are distributed widely in nature and activate hydrogen peroxide to oxidize organic substrates. We are continuing to develop our insight into how to control catalyst lifetime, reactivity and selectivity via ligand design and are producing new peroxidase mimics with targeted reactivity features. Students learn to design high performance oxidation catalysts and to apply synthetic organic and inorganic chemistry to enable their design work.

MECHANISMS OF ACTION OF GREEN OXIDATION CATALYSTS

In water with hydrogen peroxide (or some other oxidizing agents), TAML activators produce exceptionally strong oxidizing systems that generally perform rapidly and are capable of large turnover numbers. The reaction chemistry is usually highly efficient in hydrogen peroxide use and appears to be primarily non-radical in nature. We design ways to kinetically isolate the various steps in the complex catalytic cycle and then measure the rate behavior as we work to construct a full quantitative picture of the catalysis. Students learn how to perform kinetic studies on complex catalytic systems including stopped-flow and conventional techniques.

DEVELOPING POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS OF GREEN OXIDATION CATALYSTS

TAML activators do their catalytic work at remarkably low concentrations, low micromolar to nanomolar. By using design understanding informed by mechanistic insight, we have been able to produce variants that oxidize many pollutants in water over a wide range of reaction conditions. The list includes persistent chlorinated phenols, natural and synthetic estrogens, active pharmaceutical agents, dyes and colored lignin fragments, chemical warfare agents, persistent explosives residuals, pesticides, and colored and smelly pollutants from the pulp and paper industry. High performance disinfection of hardy pathogens including bacterial spores and clostridia has also been discovered. Students learn how to follow these processes using a range of analytical techniques.