When you hear the word "epoxide," what do you think? If anything, likely "glue." But epoxides are quite common in our everyday lives. You might be sitting on a foam seat cushion made from epoxides. There is a good chance the synthetic textiles in your clothing involve epoxides in their production. The same is true of the paint on your car and the printed circuit boards in your electronic devices. "It's surprising how we think of epoxides as this really narrow category, but they're actually in so many things around us," says Karthish Manthiram , Bren Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at Caltech. As it turns out, he says, if you add up the carbon footprint related to the manufacture of all those epoxides worldwide, the total is equivalent to the carbon footprint of all the cars driving in Southern California. "So, it's huge. I mean, Southern California has a gazillion cars," says Manthiram, who is also a William H. Hurt Scholar and executive officer for chemical engineering at Caltech.…