toxics :: GBIG Insight

Challenges and Opportunities at the Intersection of Materials and Health: A Recap

By David Marcus on 19 Mar 2014 • 3 minute read

What happens when you gather 76 passionate and informed professionals in a room to discuss challenges and opportunities at the intersection of health, materials, and the built environment? Progress. That’s how I felt at the end of the day on Thursday, February 2 …

Identifying Better Products by Understanding Their Chemistry

By Martin Mulvihill, PhD on 12 Nov 2013 • 3 minute read

Very few people walk into a hardware store and say, “I am looking for a mixture of calcium silicate, magnesium oxide, clay and sand for my driveway, can you tell me how much calcium sulfate to use if I want it to set quickly when I pour it this weekend?” Most peo …

Envisioning a Perfect Building Material

By Martin Mulvihill, PhD on 14 Oct 2013 • 2 minute read

I am a chemist, not an architect, builder, contractor, or designer. I once built a coat rack out of a 4x4. It wasn’t pretty, but its sheer mass kept it stable in the corner of my college apartment until I moved out 2 years later. I did not build that coat rack arou …