Expertise

Topics:  Chemistry and Sustainability, Oxidation Catalysis, Sustainability, Green Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry

Industries: Research, Chemicals, Education/Learning, Investment Banking

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.

Media Experience

Catalysts efficiently and rapidly remove BPA from water  — ScienceDaily
Carnegie Mellon University chemist Terrence J. Collins has developed an approach that quickly and cheaply removes more than 99 percent of bisphenol A (BPA) from water. BPA, a ubiquitous and dangerous chemical used in the manufacturing of many plastics, is found in water sources around the world.

Sudoc Named Startup To Watch by Chemical & Engineering News  — Carnegie Mellon University News
Sudoc, a startup co-founded by Carnegie Mellon University chemists Terrence J. Collins and Ryan C. Sullivan, has been named one of 10 startups to watch by Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN). Sudoc is developing and commercializing TAML catalysts, a bioinspired environmentally friendly molecule that outperforms toxic chemicals in a wide range of applications and can be used to remove pollutants from natural and built environments.

Terry Collins: PFAS removal discovery not yet a ‘powerful solution’  — Environmental Health News
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.

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

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