• Resource and energy efficiency.
• Operational simplicity.
• health and environmental safety.
Before we elaborate on these points, here is a brief primer on Green Chemistry and related concepts.
Green Chemistry. It is reworking chemical synthesis and manufacturing to produce the desired end product and ensuring that the resources used promote sustainability. Thus, the focus is on raw materials, reactions, and apparatus that reduce the waste of chemicals, energy, and costs while maximizing the valuable product output. In 1998, Paul Anastas and John Warner developed the Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry framework articulating this principle.
Later, measurements of inefficiencies and environmental acceptability called Atom Economy and E factor, respectively, were incorporated into these principles.
Atom Economy. Atom economy seeks to achieve the highest yield and product selectivity for a chemical reaction and maximize the assimilation of the starting materials into the final product. Additionally, if maximum assimilation is not possible, it seeks to minimize the side products and generate environmentally benign side products. How it changes the reaction yield calculations is presented below and explained further in this Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) article [1].
Reaction yield = (amount of final product/ theoretical quantity of final product) x 100
Atom Economy = (Molecular weight of final product/ molecular weight of all products) x 100
In the best-case scenario, atom economy will be 100%, and lower values indicate inefficiencies.
E Factor. This term measures the environmental acceptance of chemical synthesis and manufacturing [2]. It accounts for what could be considered waste, including byproducts, unreacted residual chemicals, and solvent losses. Its value will vary depending on what is considered as waste.
For example, the mass of water, a significant byproduct of many chemical reactions, is normally omitted since it is harmless but considered severely contaminated and unrecoverable to publicly discharge. Similarly, residual reactants and solvents that can recovered and recycled are not included in the calculation, but that can be easily reclaimed and recycled to the process are not included as waste, but those that cannot be retrieved are considered as waste.
E factor = Total mass of waste from process/ Total mass of product
In the best case, the E factor will be zero, and higher E factor values indicate more waste.
Circular Economy. This term reflects the need to transition from unsustainable linear economy activities to sustainable circular economy activities driven by the need to slow down the climate chain [2]. Thus, there is a push to move away from chemical manufacturing, wherein materials are made, used, and disposed of to increased efforts to reduce, recycle, and reuse.
Strategies include extending the shelf life of materials and products, reducing material use, designing less resource-intensive materials and products, and converting “waste” to useful products and resources.
Now with this brief introduction, below we explains how our Materials discovery and manufacturing technology that incorporate the above Green Chemistry principles.
Large-scale batch production of chemicals and biochemicals generates 5-100 times of chemical waste per kilogram of useful product [1]. These inefficiencies have led to the rise of innovative, resource-efficient flow chemistry alternatives.
Our manufacturing technology pushes the boundaries of flow chemistry processes. Here, the reactions happen within microdroplets, representing an order to two orders of reductions in reaction volumes compared to other large-volume flow chemistry processes.
The broad advantages of microdroplet-based flow chemistry-based materials synthesis technology include better heat and mass transfer, mixing, safety, flexibility, reproducibility, energy efficiency, throughput, low footprint, in-line with automation, and low operating cost. Further, they are amenable to sustainable, continuous, and distributed manufacturing.
All these attributes increase chemical reaction and manufacturing efficiencies, the central tenet of atom economy.
Further, our technology’s features and our products' physical and chemical properties facilitate resource and energy efficiency, operational simplicity, and health and environmental safety. These attributes reduce the E factor, a quantifiable measure of environmental acceptability, and also promote the reduction, recycling, and reuse of materials, supporting a circular economy.
References
1. Caho-Jun Li, Barry M. Trost, Green chemistry for chemical synthesis, PNAS, 2008.
2. Roger A. Sheldon, The E factor 25 years on: the rise of green chemistry and sustainability, Green
Chemistry, 2017.
This blog is part of our broader impact series, which provides an easy-to-understand overview of the implications of our technology and products on science, sustainability, and human health.
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