Green chemistry
Green chemistry is 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, use, and ultimate disposal.
Green chemistry:
- Prevents pollution at the molecular level
- Is a philosophy that applies to all areas of chemistry
- Applies innovative scientific solutions to real-world environmental problems
- 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
How green chemistry differs from cleaning up pollution
Green chemistry reduces pollution at its source by minimizing or eliminating the hazards of chemical feed stocks, reagents, solvents, and products.
This is unlike cleaning up pollution (also called remediation), which involves treating waste streams or clean-up of environmental spills and other releases. Remediation may include separating hazardous chemicals from other materials, then treating them so they are no longer hazardous or concentrating them for safe disposal. Most remediation activities do not involve green chemistry. Remediation removes hazardous materials from the environment; on the other hand, green chemistry keeps the hazardous materials out of the environment in the first place.
Green chemistry’s 12 principles
- Prevent waste: Design chemical syntheses to prevent waste. Leave no waste to treat or clean up.
- Maximize atom economy: Design syntheses so that the final product contains the maximum proportion of the starting materials. Waste few or no atoms.
- Design less hazardous chemical syntheses: Design syntheses to use and generate substances with little or no toxicity to either humans or the environment.
- Design safer chemicals and products: Design chemical products that are fully effective yet have little or no toxicity.
- Use safer solvents and reaction conditions: Avoid using solvents, separation agents, or other auxiliary chemicals. If you must use these chemicals, use safer ones.
- Increase energy efficiency: Run chemical reactions at room temperature and pressure whenever possible.
- Use renewable feedstocks: Use starting materials (also known as feedstocks) that are renewable rather than depletable. The source of renewable feedstocks is often agricultural products or the wastes of other processes; the source of depletable feedstocks is often fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas, or coal) or mining operations.
- Avoid chemical derivatives: Avoid using blocking or protecting groups or any temporary modifications if possible. Derivatives use additional reagents and generate waste.
- Use catalysts, not stoichiometric reagents: Minimize waste by using catalytic reactions. Catalysts are effective in small amounts and can carry out a single reaction many times. They are preferable to stoichiometric reagents, which are used in excess and carry out a reaction only once.
- Design chemicals and products to degrade after use: Design chemical products to break down to innocuous substances after use so that they do not accumulate in the environment.
- Analyze in real time to prevent pollution: Include in-process, real-time monitoring and control during syntheses to minimize or eliminate the formation of by-products.
- Minimize the potential for accidents: Design chemicals and their physical forms (solid, liquid, or gas) to minimize the potential for chemical accidents including explosions, fires, and releases to the environment.