Green Chemistry Issue 2 now online!

29 Jan 2013

Green Chemistry issue 2, 2013, is now available to read online.

Green Chemistry, issue 2, 2013 - front cover This issue features work by Enrique Herrero Acero, Georg Guebitz and co-workers from Austria who report the replacement of heavy-metal catalysts from paints. Alkyd resins are polyesters containing unsaturated fatty acids which are used as binding agents in paints and coatings. The chemical drying of these resins is based on crossing-linking the unsaturated fatty acid moieties using heavy-metal catalysts. However, these catalysts have been proven to be carcinogenic and so research has been focused on finding less toxic and environmentally friendly alternatives. The team here have developed a laccase-mediator system which not only performs well in aqueous media, but also in solid film.

Banning toxic heavy-metal catalysts from paints: enzymatic cross-linking of alkyd resins, Katrin J. Greimel, Veronika Perz, Klaus Koren, Roland Feola, Armin Temel, Christian Sohar, Enrique Herrero Acero, Ingo Klimant and Georg M. Guebitz, Green Chem., 2013, 15, 381-388

Green Chemistry, issue 2, 2013 - inside front cover The inside front cover features work by Michael Meier and Maulidan Firdaus who have derived renewable polyamides and polyurethanes from limonene. Addition of cysteamine hydrochloride to (R)-(+)- and (S)-(+)-limonene presented a versatile method to produce functionalised renewable monomers for polyamide and polyurethane synthesis. Through various combinations, fatty acid, limonene and Nylon 6,6 copolymers were prepared. Diamines derived from limonene were efficiently transformed into dicarbamates viaa phosgene-free route, and linear renewable polyurethanes, with molecular weights of up to 12.6 kDa, were obtained through an isocyanate-free route. The structure-thermal property relationships of these compounds were also studied.