Green Chemistry: Terminology and Principles

Recent years have seen a disheartening string of revelations in which everyday items once considered safe—food packaging, toys, clothes, furniture, electronic components, and many more products—are found to contain carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and other harmful chemicals.1 Growing demand for healthier alternatives, already seen in food production and housing construction,2 is also happening at the building-block level of manufacturing, where so-called green chemistry represents a revolutionary change in preventing pollution and health problems starting at the chemical design stage. Many industry and government entities are beginning to espouse the principles of green chemistry on their websites and in public statements. Now comes the task of crafting policy to put those principles into action. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines green chemistry as “the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances. Green chemistry applies across the life cycle of a chemical product, including its design, manufacture, and use.”3 Green chemistry also aims to mitigate the type of uncertainty Alan Gold-berg, a professor of toxicology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, recently described to The New York Times: “I can get [toxicity] information on only 20 percent of chemicals we interact with on a daily basis.”4 Of that 20%, he now says, he may be able to find information on overt toxicity for about half, but for details on specific effects such as developmental neurotoxicity, the figure shrinks toward zero. So what does green chemistry look like? Consider the example of pregabalin, the active ingredient in the neuropathic pain drug Lyrica®. Pfizer developed an alternative green-chemistry process that converted several steps of pregabalin synthesis from use of organic solvents to water. That reduced both health hazards and production heating requirements. With the new synthesis, waste from the process dropped from 86 kg of waste per kg product to 17 kg, and energy use dropped by 82%.5 Proponents say that’s how the field can offer a win–win–win solution: good performance, lower cost, and less environmental impact—what Richard Engler, program manager of the EPA Green Chemistry Program, calls the “triple bottom line.” For many, a standard is a logical next step. “At some point you have to go beyond a definition and principles,” says Engler. “I think that’s something the standard will enable.”

Catalysis as a foundational pillar of green chemistry

In 2015 the United Nations declared a framework comprising 17 aspirational goals known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which was meant to be adopted by governments, industries, and other stakeholders worldwide to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people live with peace and prosperity by 2030. It can make the environment sustainable, in other words. Chemistry can play an essential role in helping society achieve the SDGs and Green Chemistry (GC) specifically may be a key player in this regard. GC complements other streams of chemistry, including environmental chemistry. Environmental Chemistry is the ‘chemistry of the environment’ that explains nature and the impact of man on nature. At the same time, GC is ‘chemistry for the environment’ i.e., more environmentally friendly chemistry. GC may be defined as “invention, design and application of chemical products and processes to reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances”. New chemical research, green and sustainable chemistry education, green and sustainable chemical manufacturing practices, and a sense of social responsibility are critical for all chemists worldwide as we work together to protect our planet Earth. SDGs including Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-being, Clean Water and Sanitation, Affordable and Clean Energy, Industries, Innovation and Infrastructure, Responsible Consumption and Production, Climate Action is directly related to chemistry at large and GC in precise. Therefore, if we rightly practice GC, it serves the purpose of environmental sustainability and will be useful in achieving the SDGs, which will ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity in the long run. Green Chemistry Education is quite important in this regard, which needs to be practiced more and more.

Experts mulled the differences between the defined field of green chemistry and the more imprecise concept of sustainable chemistry at a US congressional hearing July 25. Their discussions could influence legislation backed by industry and academics that would focus federal efforts on characterizing and directing grant funding to sustainable chemistry. Green chemistry principles were established in the 1990s, Julie Zimmerman, deputy director of the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale University, told the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Research and Technology. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, “Green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the generation of hazardous substances.” “The term sustainable chemistry has been introduced more recently and possesses countless definitions” put forth by individuals, companies, trade associations, nonprofit organizations, and governmental entities, Zi...

Science Education International ¦ Volume 32 ¦ Issue 2 107 ORIGINAL ARTICLE INTRODUCTION The problem-based learning (PBL) methodology is a student-centered approach that is related to the learning process that occurs when students deal with real world problems, while working in teams to find and develop a solution, with teachers/instructors acting as facilitators (Nagarajan and Overton, 2019). Some elements seem to be common to PBL: Learning is student centered (as mentioned before), problems are structured and authentic, teachers act as advisors, and students work in small groups (Cowden and Santiago, 2016). Although, the elements are in constant interaction, students are responsible of their learning, implying that they have the main role in the cognitive process and should work actively, in group, to solve a problem. On the other hand, instructors act as coaches, they incite group discussion, and they are in charge of monitoring the process. Students are the main characters, since PBL methodology emerged from constructivist learning theories and it was developed as an alternative to conventional teaching (Loyens et al., 2006). Constructivism suggests that humans build knowledge from their experiences and, contrary to traditional education, where students receive knowledge like empty vessels to be filled, in constructivist, students are encouraged to confront what they know (Bada and Olusegun, 2015). It is evident that, long-term memorability is enhanced by PBL, because it fosters the utilization of previous knowledge to solve a new problem and demands students to put in practice what they have already been taught, therefore, facilitating the comprehension of the concepts (Schmidt et al., 2011). Other benefits that come along with PBL include the improvement of student’s creative thinking, self-regulated skills, and self-evaluation (Jansson et al., 2015; Yoon et al., 2014). Therefore, to improve chemistry student’s learning experience, the PBL approach can be used for a better comprehension of the importance of Green Chemistry. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, 1990), Green Chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances; this designing process can be assisted by the Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry (Lancaster, 2002). The principles are qualitative, and their aim is to minimize the impact of chemical activities on human health and environment without compromising the chemical process (Ribeiro and Machado, 2013). There is a commitment to green chemistry education (Armstrong et al., 2018), and efforts have been made to implement it, at the undergraduate level (Timmer et al., 2018; Kennedy, 2016; Manchanayakage, 2013), but there is an uneven development of green chemistry curricular materials, since there have been few comprehensive reforms for general chemistry lecture or laboratory curricula (Armstrong et al., 2019). For example, Green Chemistry has not been covered extensively by chemistry A problem-based learning (PBL) methodology was implemented to a project, whose main objectives were to discuss and apply the Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry to the study of poly(vinyl alcohol)’s cross-linking reaction with dicarboxylic acids. The five participating students were oriented to be responsible for their own learning and the professor participated as an advisor. The problem was proposed and students planned all their activities to accomplish the objectives and goals, reviewed recent information in scientific literature and summarized it, made experimental work, prepared written reports, and were evaluated in seminars. The results obtained by the students were assessed through the generation of a final report and also with a final oral presentation in front of faculty members. The experience lived by the collaborative workgroup during the development and execution of the project, is described. This research is an example of how the PBL methodology can motivate the active participation of students when solving problems. The next step is to introduce this tool to teachers and students of other undergraduate courses or laboratories, since it causes a difference in the way education is being perceived in our university, because it emphasizes the application and understanding of concepts over simple memorization.

RETURN TO ISSUEPREVNewsNEXTGREEN CHEMISTRY PROGRESS REPORTFaster implementation of pollution prevention strategy will help reach global sustainability goalsSTEPHEN K. RITTERView Author Information C&EN WASHINGTONCite this: Chem. Eng. News 2002, 80, 47, 19–23Publication Date (Print):November 25, 2002Publication History Published online13 November 2010Published inissue 25 November 2002https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cen-v080n047.p019https://doi.org/10.1021/cen-v080n047.p019newsACS PublicationsCopyright © 2002 American Chemical SocietyArticle Views57Altmetric-Citations18LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InRedditEmail Other access options SUBJECTS:Green chemistry Get e-Alerts

The first Special Topic issue devoted to green chemistry was published in Pure and Applied Chemistry in July 2000 [Pure Appl. Chem.72, 1207-1403 (2000)]. Since then, three collections of works have been published, arising from the recently launched IUPAC series of International Conferences on Green Chemistry:- 1st International Conference on Green Chemistry (ICGC-1), Dresden, Germany, 10-15 September 2006: Pure Appl. Chem.79, 1833-2100 (2007)- 2nd International Conference on Green Chemistry (ICGC-2), Moscow, Russia, 14-20 September 2008: Pure Appl. Chem.81, 1961-2129 (2009)- 3rd International Conference on Green Chemistry (ICGC-3), Ottawa, Canada, 15-18 August 2010: Pure Appl. Chem.83, 1343-1406 (2011)This Special Topic issue forms part of the series on green chemistry, and is an outcome of IUPAC Project No. 2008-016-1-300: “Chlorine-free Synthesis for Green Chemistry” previously announced in Chemistry International, May-June, p. 22 (2011).The IUPAC Subcommittee on Green Chemistry was founded in July 2001 and has selected the following definition for green chemistry [1]: “The invention, design and application of chemical products and processes to reduce or to eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances” [2].Much controversy persists about the appropriate terminology to describe this new field of research. Which term should be selected, “green chemistry” or “sustainable chemistry”? Perhaps consensus can be achieved if different purposes and interests of chemists are reconciled. If we are involved in fundamental research devoted to the discovery of new reaction pathways and reagents, “green” is the best word because it defines these intents, thus the term “green chemistry” would be the best name for this field of research. If we are interested in exploitation of a process or a product that must be profitable, then such chemical manufacture must be sustainable by many criteria (price, competition, profit, environment, etc.), and, accordingly, “sustainable chemistry” is the term that best defines this objective.This Special Topic issue has been designed with the intent to explore the restriction, or preferably prevention, of the use of halogenated compounds, whenever feasible, through the assembly and reporting of already identified information. This intent has been pursued through innovative synthetic pathways using clearly identified production drivers (e.g., energy consumption, environmental impact, economical feasibility, etc.). In past decades, scientific knowledge and feasible technologies were unavailable, but we now have enough expertise to pursue discontinuation of hazardous and toxic reagents. In fact, the replacement of reagents that are toxic, dangerous, and produced by eco-unfriendly processes is still an underdeveloped area of chemistry today.Pietro TundoProject Co-chair1. For a short history of green chemistry, see: P. Tundo, F. Aricò. Chem. Int.29(5), (2007).2. P. Anastas, D. Black, J. Breen, T. Collins, S. Memoli, J. Miyamoto, M. Polyakoff, W. Tumas, P. Tundo. Pure Appl. Chem.72, 1207 (2000).

Green chemistry is an approach to the design , manufacture and use of chemical products to internationally reduce or eliminate chemical hazards . it focuses on the reduction, recycling/ eliminations of the use of toxic and hazardous chemicals in production processes by finding creative , alternative routes for making the desired products that manimize the impact on the environment sustainable economic growth requires safe, sustainable resources for industrial production . This article describes an introductory account of the basic tanets on which the concept of the green chemistry is based . Green chemistry which is the latest and one of the most researched topic now days has been in demand since 1990's . Majority of research in green chemistry aims to reduce the energy consumption required for the production of desired products whether it may be any drug , dyes and other chemical compound. It aims to reduce or even eliminates the production of any harmful bio-product and maximizing the desired products without compromising with the environment . The goal of green chemistry (GC) is the design (or redesign) of product and manufacturing processes to reduce their impact on human health and the environment. Fundamental to the GC concept is the idea of sustainability _ reducing environment impacts and conserving natural resources for future Green generation . Although many of the principales of green chemistry are not new , the extend to which they have been organized into a coherent approach and the degree to which they are being applied have resulted in an intensified attention on this topic among the academic , industrial , and regulatory communities. The use of toxic, poisonous, hazardous and bio-accumalative chemical substance is reduced or eliminated in green chemistry , which involves the design of chemical processes and product. It is a fresh take on scientifically based environmental protection and in essential to preventing climate change , acid rain , and global warming . It's basic tenet increases efficacy , selectivity , and minimises waste creation , making it a crucial instrument in the fight against pollution

‡ To whose memory this paper is dedicated. Joe Breen was a leading pioneer of green chemistry. Following his retirement from EPA, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, where he worked on asbestos, dioxins, and pollution prevention, Joe became Executive Director of the Green Chemistry Institute, a not-for-profit organization promoting environmentally benign syntheses and processing. His premature death on 19 July 1999 created a void in the Working Party team, but encouraged all of us to continue our mission, having in mind his passion for this work and his exquisite friendship.

Chemicals surround us in all our daily activities. There is practically no facet in material life—transportation, communication, clothing, shelter, and office—in which chemistry does not play an important role, by supplying either consumer products or services. The development of the chemical industry in the past century resulted in huge advances, such as the development of effective drugs to cure diseases or the production of plant protection products and fertilizers that have increased the world's food supply. In spite of this, chemistry and its industry is often viewed by the general public as causing more harm than good (Lancaster 2002). Indeed, the manufacture, use, and disposal of chemicals consume large amounts of resources and originate emissions of pollutants to all environmental compartments. Given that the global demand for chemicals is expected to increase faster than the world's population and GDP (OECD 2001), there is a need for a shift towards a more efficient and sustainable chemistry. The concept of Green Chemistry (GC) was coined by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) in the early 1990s and can be briefly defined as the use of chemistry for pollution prevention. Anastas et al. (2000) later defined it as “the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances.” The term “hazard” in this definition was meant to include the full range of threats to human health and the environment, such as physical hazards, toxicity, climate change, and resource depletion (Anastas and Lankey 2000). In order to make this concept operational, the USEPA developed a set of 12 guiding principles (Table 1). These principles constitute the backbone of GC and a universal code of practice for the eco-design of chemicals and chemical processes.

RETURN TO ISSUEPREVNewsNEXTGreen Chemistry Institute Joins ACSLINDA RABERCite this: Chem. Eng. News 2000, 78, 49, 13–14Publication Date (Print):December 4, 2000Publication History Published online12 November 2010Published inissue 4 December 2000https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cen-v078n049.p013ahttps://doi.org/10.1021/cen-v078n049.p013anewsACS PublicationsCopyright © 2000 American Chemical SocietyArticle Views12Altmetric-Citations2LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InRedditEmail Other access options SUBJECTS:Green chemistry Get e-Alerts

Synthesis of 2,3,5- Triphenyl imidazole is carried out by conventional method/ traditional method as well as green chemistry in the present study. Green chemistry is also known as micro-wave assisted synthesis. Green chemistry is the design of chemical products and process that eliminates the use and generation of hazardous substances. Using green solvent, like water, synthesis of biologically active moiety with high percentage yield as well as purity. The Percentage yield of 2,3,5- Triphenyl imidazole obtained by Green Chemistry Approach is 90.90% whereas Conventional/Traditional method produces only 69.60% of 2,3,5- Triphenyl imidazole constant concentration of all organic reagents. Hence, we concluded that green chemistry approach is environment friendly.

Promoting sustainability through green chemistry

Green chemistry can also be referred to as sustainable chemistry and it is the design of chemical products and processes aimed at less or less the use of hazardous substances. It's about lessening the destructive consequences on the environment and the earth's sustainability (Wale et al., 2023; Mane et al., 2023). This accommodates many principles that outline how to design safer chemical reactions as well as technology and the use of green chemicals (De, 2023; Rathi et al., 2023). Such principles include the elimination or reduction of generation, using renewable raw materials, and the production of safer substances and materials to decrease harm to human health and the environment, according to Nithya and Sathish (2023). Thus, green chemistry's goal is to bring radical changes in industries researching for effective and eco-friendly strategies for the synthesis of materials, including nanomaterials, through employing cost-efficiency and biocompatibility with the help of earth's resources (De, 2023).

Green Chemistry or Sustainable Chemistry is defined by the Environmental Protection Agency as "the design of chemical products that reduce or eliminate the use of hazardous substances" In recent years there is a greater societal expectation that chemists and chemical engineers should produce greener and more sustainable chemical processes and it is likely that this trend will continue to grow over the next few decades. This tutorial review gives information on solvents and solvent selection, basic environmental metrics collection and three industrial case histories. All three case histories involve enzymatic chemistry. Pregabalin (Lyrica®) is produced using a lipase based resolution and is extremely unusual in that all four manufacturing steps to make pregabalin are performed in water. Sitagliptin (Januvia®) uses a transaminase in the final chemical step. Finally a rosuvastatin (Crestor®) intermediate is produced using a deoxy ribose aldolase (DERA) enzyme in which two carbon-carbon bonds and two chiral centres are formed in the same process step.