In front of a packed Magneli hall, our guests gave a presentation on the science and history of green chemistry, and showing how chemistry have and will have large impact when we work towards a more circular and sustainable future. 

The principles

Green Chemistry is the utilization of a set of twelve principles that reduces or eliminates the us or generation of hazardous substances in the design, manufacture and application of a chemical product.

The principles are (in short) as follows

1. Prevention – better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up after it has formed
2. Atom economy – maximize the use of the material used in the process to maximize yield
3. Less hazardous chemical synthesis – whenever possible use methods that use and generate as little toxic substances as possible
4. Design safer chemicals – or “safe by design”, chemicals should be designed to be efficient while being as non-toxic as possible, both to humans and environment.
5. Safe solvents and auxiliaries – the use of solvents, separation agents etc should be made unnecessary whenever possible and when used, use the least harmful possible.
6. Design for energy efficiency – use a little energy as possible 
7. Use of renewable feedstock – raw materials and feedstock should be renewable as much as possible.
8. Reduce derivatives – use with caution and avoid if at all possible
9. Catalysis – selective catalysis is superior to stochiometric reagents
10. Design for degradation – design chemicals that are as non-persistent as possible, they should break down to innocuous degradation products.
11. Real-time analysis for pollution prevention – real time monitoring of processes.
12. Inherently safe chemistry for accident prevention – minimize the risk of chemical disasters.

The history

Paul and John presented the history of Green Chemistry and the development of the area over the years. It was an inspiring lecture, to hear how much the view has changed, and better understand how chemistry has a central role in the drive towards a more sustainable future.
They explained the difficulty getting the principles general enough, at the same time specific enough to be useful. They also pushed the message that green chemistry applies to all areas of chemistry, not just organic.

Questions and answers

The lecture was followed by a question and answer session with interesting and complicated questions. 
One of them how is China, large manufacturer of chemicals, implementing green chemistry? Same goes for some manufacturers in the US? The speakers remained positive when answering, saying the future generation will not accept the level of pollution that is happening now, and also the development of more sustainable processes is continuous.

Paul talked about how science is doing its part in transformative innovations – now the industry and government must do their part. Economic and practical drivers are the key here. “Greener” solutions may be more cost efficient – making it a more viable option.

You can listen to the full talk here (apologies for the quality of recording).

Student session

After the talk our masters students, PhD students and Postdocs had the opportunity to sit down with Paul and John to discuss and ask questions in a smaller setting. According to the students I spoke to this was the best part of the afternoon. They were all happy with the chance to discuss scientific issues and get input from prof. Anastas and prof. Warner.