GREEN CHEMISTRY

Dr. Ramesh Menaria

Lecturer In Chemistry, Government College Banswara, India

menaria_ramesh@yahoo.co.in

What is Green Chemistry?

Introduction

The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 established a national policy to prevent or reduce pollution at its source whenever feasible. The Pollution Prevention Act also provided an opportunity to expand beyond traditional EPA programs and devise creative strategies to protect human health and the environment. Green chemistry is the use of chemistry for pollution prevention. More specifically, green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. Green chemistry is a highly effective approach to pollution prevention because it applies innovative scientific solutions to real-world environmental situations. The 12 principles of green chemistry originally developed by Paul Anastas and John Warner in Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice, provide a road map for chemists to implement green chemistry. Promoting this new approach to pollution prevention through the environmentally conscious design of chemical products and processes is the focus of EPA's Green Chemistry Program, an initiative under the EPA's.

The Design for the Environment (DfE) program is one of EPA's premier partnership programs, working with individual industry sectors to compare and improve the performance and human health and environmental risks and costs of existing and alternative products, processes, and practices. DfE partnership projects promote integrating cleaner, cheaper, and smarter solutions into everyday business practices.

EPA also supports using "benign by design" principles in the design, manufacture, and use of chemicals and chemical processes—a concept known as "green chemistry." EPA's Green Chemistry Program promotes the research, development, and implementation of innovative chemical technologies that prevent pollution in both a scientifically sound and cost-effective manner. In addition, EPA's emerging Green Engineering Program strives to help academia introduce a "green" philosophy into undergraduate chemical engineering curricula. The DfE Program works with these and other related programs.

12 Principles of Green Chemistry

1.     Prevent waste: Design chemical syntheses to prevent waste, leaving no waste to treat or clean up.

2.     Design safer chemicals and products: Design chemical products to be fully effective, yet have little or no toxicity.

3.     Design less hazardous chemical syntheses: Design syntheses to use and generate substances with little or no toxicity to humans and the environment.

4.     Use renewable feedstocks: Use raw materials and feedstocks that are renewable rather than depleting. Renewable feedstocks are often made from agricultural products or are the wastes of other processes; depleting feedstocks are made from fossil fuels (petroleum, natural gas, or coal) or are mined.

5.     Use catalysts, not stoichiometric reagents: Minimize waste by using catalytic reactions. Catalysts are used in small amounts and can carry out a single reaction many times. They are preferable to stoichiometric reagents, which are used in excess and work only once.

6.     Avoid chemical derivatives: Avoid using blocking or protecting groups or any temporary modifications if possible. Derivatives use additional reagents and generate waste.

7.     Maximize atom economy: Design syntheses so that the final product contains the maximum proportion of the starting materials. There should be few, if any, wasted atoms.

8.     Use safer solvents and reaction conditions: Avoid using solvents, separation agents, or other auxiliary chemicals. If these chemicals are necessary, use innocuous chemicals.

9.     Increase energy efficiency: Run chemical reactions at ambient temperature and pressure whenever possible.

10.                        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.

11.                        Analyze in real time to prevent pollution: Include in-process real-time monitoring and control during syntheses to minimize or eliminate the formation of byproducts.

12.                        Minimize the potential for accidents: Design chemicals and their forms (solid, liquid, or gas) to minimize the potential for chemical accidents including explosions, fires, and releases to the environment.

History

Shortly after the passage of the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) explored the idea of developing new or improving existing chemical products and processes to make them less hazardous to human health and the environment.  In 1991, OPPT launched a model research grants program called "Alternative Synthetic Pathways for Pollution Prevention".  This program provided unprecedented grants for research projects that include pollution prevention in the design and synthesis of chemicals.  Since then, the Green Chemistry Program has built many collaborations with academia, industry, other government agencies, and non-government organizations to promote the use of chemistry for pollution prevention through completely voluntary, non-regulatory partnerships.

Goals

EPA's Green Chemistry Program promotes the research, development, and implementation of innovative chemical technologies that accomplish pollution prevention in a scientifically sound and cost-effective manner.  To accomplish these goals, the Green Chemistry Program recognizes and supports chemical technologies that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances during the design, manufacture, and use of chemical products and processes.  More specifically, the Green Chemistry Program supports fundamental research in the area of environmentally benign chemistry as well as a variety of educational activities, international activities, conferences and meetings, and tool development, all through voluntary partnerships with academia, industry, other government agencies, and non-government organizations.

A Greener Approach to Chemical Education

 The department of chemistry, Post Graduate College, Banswara, India is actively engaged in Green Chemistry researches. Our mission is to promote the chemical endeavor, both in advancing the science itself, and also improving the public's perception of chemistry. Our involvement with Green Chemistry allows us to do both things at once!

 We are thinking about the environmental, health and safety consequences of the products our industries are designing and using. They are learning to consider the benefits of pollution prevention, design less-hazardous materials, and reduce waste. The result will be a cleaner chemical industry that is more profitable. The department is working on a number of inventions products that help explain the fundamental ideas of green chemistry, while at the same time providing materials that can be used with students. Especially, Dr. Ramesh Menaria has been working in the field of alternative energy to provide ultimate solution to energy crisis and pollution to safeguard the environment.

       As a team, we are continuing to work on new green chemistry projects.  We currently are in process of developing a web-based interactive teaching module on the Green Chemistry and Photochemistry. The module is designed for use in general chemistry courses to reinforce Green Chemistry concepts, while emphasizing the application of chemistry to real-world issues.

The module provides an opportunity to balance scientific information alongside economic and environmental considerations. Activities within the module focus on the decision-making process, and promote critical thinking, teamwork and communication among students. If you would like to learn more about this new online module, or are interested in field with your students, contact Dr. Ramesh Menaria at 91-02962-241724

Here's a list of doctoral theses that have done over the past few years on education in green chemistry, photochemistry and other fields. In past, the most of the work has been done at department of chemistry, College of Science, Sukhadia University, and presently also GCB, DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY is actively engaged in part, in cooperation with the Chemistry Department, College of science, Sukhadia University and with financial support from the UNIVERSITY GRANTS COMMISSION, NEW DELHI.