Green Chemistry and Technology

Polysaccharides polymers: These are biological feedstock, and as such have the advantage of being renewable, as opposed to those feedstocks which are the product of petroleum. On the other hand, these have no chronic toxicity to human health and environment. Commodity chemicals from glucose: glucose is another alternative for commodity chemicals by using glucose in place of benzene, can help in minimizing the use of certain reagents with certain toxicity. The conduction of synthesis in water instead of organic solvents is more beneficial. The use of CO2 as a substitute for organic solvents already represents a tool of waste reduction in chemical industry.

Biodegradation is nature’s waste management and recycling system. It breaks down everything from yard waste to crude oil. It is a natural process necessary to keep our planet clean and healthy.“A process by which microbial organisms transform or alter (through metabolic or enzymatic action) the structure of chemicals introduced into the environment.” Basically, organic (carbon-based) material is changed through chemical processes from complex molecules into simpler molecules, eventually returning the molecules into the environment. For example, a banana peel can be reduced from cellulose to water, carbon dioxide gas, and humus in a compost pile.

Biopolymers are polymers synthesized by living organisms. Biopolymers can be polynucleotides (such as the nucleic acids DNA and RNA), polypeptides (that is, proteins) or polysaccharides (that is, polymeric carbohydrates).These consist of long chains made of repeating, covalently bonded units, such as nucleotides, amino acids or monosaccharides. Bioplastic is a biodegradable material that come from renewable sources and can be used to reduce the problem of plastic waste that is suffocating the planet and polluting the environment.As an alternative, the use of bioplastics is being promoted, consisting in obtaining natural polymers from agricultural, cellulose or potato and corn starch waste. These are 100% degradable, equally resistant and versatile, already used in agriculture, textile industry, medicine and, over all, in the container and packaging market, and biopolymers are already becoming popular in cities throughout Europe and the United States for ecological reasons: they are known as PHA.

This product is expected to cover the needs of 10% of the European plastics market within 10 years.

Advantages of bioplastics:

• They reduce carbon footprint
• They providing energy savings in production
• They do not involve the consumption of non-renewable raw materials
• Their production reduces non-biodegradable waste that contaminates the environment
• They do not contain additives that are harmful to health, such as phthalates or bisphenol A 
• They do not change the flavor or scent of the food contained

Eco-friendly literally means earth-friendly or not harmful to the environment. This term most commonly refers to products that contribute to green living or practices that help conserve resources like water and energy. Eco-friendly products also prevent contributions to air, water and land pollution. You can engage in eco-friendly habits or practices by being more conscious of how you use resources. Eco Friendly are sustainability and marketing terms referring to goods and services, laws, guidelines and policies that claim reduced, minimal, or no harm upon ecosystems or the environment. Companies use these ambiguous terms to promote goods and services, sometimes with additional, more specific certifications, such as ecolabels. Their overuse can be referred to as greenwashing

VOC reduction enables better indoor and outdoor air quality, and decreases human exposure to pollutants, Dow’s low-or no-VOC solutions cost less than more traditional compounds, Dow’s low or no-VOC solutions meet sustainability requirements without compromising the quality of the product.The manufacture of computer chips requires excessive amounts of chemicals, water, and energy. Estimates indicate that the weight of chemicals and fossil fuels required to make a computer chip is 630 times the weight of the chip, as compared to the 2:1 ratio for the manufacture of an automobile.

Catalysis has come a long way and has served industry well in enabling many reactions to be done which, otherwise, would have been uneconomic or even impossible. Today chemists are faced with new challenges as concerns for the environment and scarcity of resources motivates them to look for greener processes. Biocatalysis is the main green chemistry technology adopted by the fine chemicals and pharmaceutical industries to manufacture chemicals with higher yield. Heterogeneously catalysed processes using supported metal or molecular catalysts are still an exception.

Green chemistry emerged from a variety of existing ideas and research efforts (such as atom economy and catalysis) in the period leading up to the 1990s, in the context of increasing attention to problems of chemical pollution and resource depletion. The development of green chemistry in Europe and the United States was linked to a shift in environmental problem-solving strategies: a movement from command and control regulation and mandated reduction of industrial emissions at the "end of the pipe," toward the active prevention of pollution through the innovative design of production technologies themselves.

For a technology to be considered Green Chemistry, it must accomplish three things:

• It must be more environmentally benign than existing alternatives.
• It must be more economically viable than existing alternatives.
• It must be functionally equivalent to or outperform existing alternatives.

Green Chemistry presents industries with incredible opportunity for growth and competitive advantage. This is because there is currently a significant shortage of green technologies: we estimate that only 10% of current technologies are environmentally benign; another 25% could be made benign relatively easily. The remaining 65% have yet to be invented! Green Chemistry also creates cost savings: when hazardous materials are removed from materials and processes, all hazard-related costs are also removed, such as those associated with handling, transportation, disposal, and compliance. Through Green Chemistry, environmentally benign alternatives to current materials and technologies can be systematically introduced across all types of manufacturing to promote a more environmentally and economically sustainable future.
 

Green chemistry metrics serve to quantify the efficiency or environmental performance of chemical processes, and allow changes in performance to be measured. The motivation for using metrics is the expectation that quantifying technical and environmental improvements can make the benefits of new technologies more tangible, perceptible, or understandable. This, in turn, is likely to aid the communication of research and potentially facilitate the wider adoption of green chemistry technologies in industry.

Environmental science is the multidisciplinary study of all aspects of the Earth’s physical and biological environments. It encompasses environmental chemistry, soil science, ecology, climatology, vegetation cover, marine and freshwater systems, as well as environmental remediation and preservation, and agriculture and land use. It also covers topics like Environmental Chemistry, Carbon footprint, Co₂ capture, Greenhouse effect and many more. The natural greenhouse effect is caused by greenhouse gases which occur naturally in the earth’s atmosphere. The main natural greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and water (H2O). These gases absorb and re-radiate the sun’s heat, helping to warm the planet and providing a temperature range that is suitable for life as we know it. Without these natural greenhouse gases, the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere would be approximately 34 degrees Celsius lower than it is today.

Chemical synthesis using biodegradable materials (bioplastics, biopolymers) and syntheses using biomass-derived building blocks, High atom economy synthesis, Solvent elimination and sustainability assessment of solvents, Utilization of techniques and technologies that minimise energy and maximise reaction efficiency.Biocatalysis is the main green chemistry technology adopted by the fine chemicals and pharmaceutical industries to manufacture chemicals with higher yield. Heterogeneously catalysed processes using supported metal or molecular catalysts are still an exception

Green chemistry is being employed to develop revolutionary drug delivery methods that are more effective and less toxic and could benefit millions of patients. Phosphoramidite-based, solid-phase synthesis of antisense oligonucleotides has been modified to accommodate principles of green chemistry by eliminating the use and generation of toxic materials and allowing reuse of valuable materials such as amidites, solid-support and protecting groups, thus improving the atom economy and cost-efficiency,

Green chemistry also plays a key role in alternative energy science, and the production of new ways to make solar cells, fuel cells, and batteries for storing energy.

According to a recent analysis, solar photovoltaic technology is “one of the few renewable, low-carbon resources with both the scalability and the technological maturity to meet ever-growing global demand for electricity.” The use of solar photovoltaics has been growing at an average of 43% per year since 2000.  In recent years, clean energy experts have been very excited about the emergence of two new chemistry-driven solar technologies, perovskite solar cells and quantum dots.

Green engineering approaches the design of products and processes by applying financially and technologically feasible processes and products in a manner that simultaneously decreases the amount of pollution that is generated by a source, minimizes exposures to potential hazards (including reducing toxicity and improved uses of matter and energy throughout the life cycle of the product and processes) as well as protecting human health without relinquishing the economic efficiency and viability. As such, green engineering is not actually an engineering discipline in itself, but an overarching engineering framework for all design disciplines.

There are number of approaches that can be used to support chemical risk assessment.  Ideally, predictive tools identify hazards to be avoided; for example, it may be possible to identify a compound property or structural features that are associated with adverse effects.  Such computational tools that exploit existing toxicology information can be used to ascertain potential relationships between chemical space and toxicological response.  The outputs from these analyses can be used to define project-specific, toxicology experiments to determine if the predicted toxicities are real and so influence compound design.

There are several proposed remediation techniques that use nanotechnology. For example, solar photocatalysis using titanium dioxide nanoparticles can degrade pollutants like volatile organic compounds and nitrous oxides and consequently has been used in cement and commercial plants. Paints enriched with Nano titanium dioxide, replacing organic biocides, are used to keep the surfaces of buildings clean.

Soil remediation of abandoned and old military and industrial sites has become a great challenge in industrialized nations. Trials have been set-up using Nano zero-valent iron and iron oxides and the results have been quite promising. However, there are environmental concerns regarding the impact of nanoparticles on the soil.

Green Polymers is a innovative technology to replace traditional materials with the ecofriendly substances. Polystyrene-Aluminium Chloride: It is used to prepare Ethers from alcohols. Polystyrene AlCl3 is a useful catalyst for synthetic reactions which require both a dehydrating agent and a Lewis acid. Thus, acetals are obtained in good yield by the reaction of aldehyde, alcohol and polymeric AlCl3 in an organic inert solvent. Polymeric super acid catalysts: This polymeric super acid catalysts are obtained by aluminium chloride to Sulfonate Polystyrene.

Green Separations is defined by the separations of molecules, elements or substances in a sustainable method which does'nt harm the environmet in any form. It also know as the Ecofriendly separations and it is an alternative way to make separations in industries. 

Solvents are consumed in large quantities in many chemical syntheses as well as for cleaning and degreasing. Traditional solvents are often toxic or are chlorinated. Green solvents, on the other hand, are generally derived from renewable resources and biodegrade to innocuous, often naturally occurring product.Moreover, owning to its high polar character one can expect novel reactivities and selectivities for organometallic catalysis in water. Furthermore, this provides an opportunity to overcome a serious shortcoming of homogenous catalysts.

Green Chemistry and sustainable agriculture are inherently intertwined; farmers need green chemists to make safe agricultural chemical inputs. Green Chemists need farmers practicing sustainable agriculture to provide truly “green” bio-based raw materials to process into new products. Practitioners of sustainable agriculture seek to integrate three main objectives into their work: a healthy environment, economic profitability, and social and economic equity. Every person involved in the food system—growers, food processors, distributors, retailers, consumers, and waste managers—can play a role in ensuring a Green and Sustainable Agricultural system.

Green chemistry or sustainable approach to synthesize the molecules or Nano particles, which ultimately reduces or eliminates the uses of hazardous chemicals and substances. Green Synthesis is describing the method to eliminate the hazardous substances

The enzyme industry has experienced significant growth during the last decade due to the global, growing demand for cleaner and greener technology to preserve the environment.

According to BCC Research, the global market for industrial enzymes is expected to grow from nearly $5.0 billion in 2016 to $6.3 billion in 2021, demonstrating a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.7%. As a segment, food industrial enzymes should approach $1.5 billion and $1.9 billion in 2016 and 2021, respectively, growing at a five-year CAGR of 4.7%.  Animal feed industrial enzymes, as a segment, is forecast to total $1.2 billion and nearly $1.6 billion in 2016 and 2021, respectively, reflecting a five-year CAGR of 5.2%. This market segment is expected to rise due to higher investments in renewable sources of energy and increased demand for animal feed products.

The GC3 commissioned this research from Environmental & Public Health Consulting to support its efforts to mainstream green chemistry by understanding barriers and opportunities to accelerating green chemistry adoption across supply chains. Metrics play a critical role in understanding if green chemistry design, policy, business, or educational efforts are leading us towards desired outcomes. The purpose of this Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) report is to identify and characterize metrics that can be used to measure progress in green chemistry.

• Is a philosophy that applies to all areas of chemistry, not a single discipline of chemistry
• Applies innovative scientific solutions to real-world environmental problems
• Results in source reduction because it prevents the generation of pollution
• Reduces the negative impacts of chemical products and processes on human health and the environment
• Lessens and sometimes eliminates hazard from existing products and processes
• Designs chemical products and processes to reduce their intrinsic hazards

Renewable materials are also knon as sustainable materials, these materials do not use up non-renewable resources. They can also be produced in high enough volume to be economically useful. Biopolymers are one such renewable material. A biopolymer is a naturally occurring polymer, such as carbohydrates and proteins. Some examples of biopolymers are cellulose, starch, collagen, soy protein and casein. These raw materials are abundant and biodegradable, and are used to make diverse products such as adhesives and cardboard. Recyclable materials include many kinds of glass, paper, and cardboard, metal, plastic, tires, textiles, and electronics. The composting or other reuse of biodegradable waste—such as food or garden waste—is also considered recycling. Materials to be recycled are either brought to a collection center or picked up from the curbside, then sorted, cleaned, and reprocessed into new materials destined for manufacturing. PHAs are biodegradable plastics, they are used as an energy and carbon storage compound within certain bacterial cells. The industries are looking forward to replace the Plastics, which are non-Bio degradable.Some of the biodegradable biopolymers are compostable: they can be put into an industrial composting process. Biodegradable polymers have an innumerable use in the biomedical field, particularly in the fields of tissue engineering and drug delivery. 

Waste management plays a major role in the field of Green Chemistry as its give ways to reduce waste in an effective way as it innovates methods to manage waste without harming the environment, ultimately it reduces the pollution. Waste management or waste disposal are all the activities and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal. This includes amongst other things collection, transport, treatment and disposal of waste together with monitoring and regulation. It also encompasses the legal and regulatory framework that relates to waste management encompassing guidance on recycling.