Archive for May, 2024

Green Chemistry 25th anniversary celebration symposium: Biorefinery for a low-carbon society

On April 21,2024 the Green Chemistry 25th anniversary celebration symposium: Biorefinery for a low-carbon society, co-sponsored by the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, was held at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics. This conference was held on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Green Chemistry. It aimed to discuss the latest progress in converting biomass into renewable energy, chemicals and materials, and to contribute to the construction of a low-carbon society.

The opening ceremony was hosted by Prof. Tao Zhang (Director of the State Key Laboratory of Catalysis Fundamentals of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and Green Chemistry’s Editorial Board Member), Prof.  Zhongmin Liu (Director of the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics), and Dr Guanqun Song (Regional Publisher at the Royal Society of Chemistry). Dr. Michael Rowan (Green Chemistry’s Executive Editor) also extended his welcoming to this event via video, and thanked the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics for its support and contribution to this symposium. After the opening ceremony, Prof. Tao Zhang awarded the Green Chemistry Excellence certificate to the speakers.

This symposium focused on the field of biorefinery and invited more than 50 experts in related fields to participate. A total of 19 talks and 1 free discussion were held. The talks covered key topics in the conversion of biomass into renewable energy, chemicals and materials, exploring the application and innovation of chemical catalysis, biocatalysis and other emerging strategies in biorefineries. Each talk demonstrated the in-depth thinking and innovative results of the researchers, highlighted the active exploration and efforts of the speakers in promoting green chemistry and sustainable development, and also attracted active questions from the participating experts. The event provided a platform for communication and cooperation, promoting in-depth dialogue and scientific discussion between the attendees.

This seminar marks a milestone celebrating Green Chemistry’s 25th Anniversary. It not only explored the latest progress in converting biomass into renewable energy, chemicals and materials, but also deepened its understanding of its mission to build a low-carbon society.

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Green Chemistry Emerging Investigators Series – Xiao-Jun Ji

Green Chemistry is proud to present the Green Chemistry Emerging Investigators Series, showcasing work being conducted by Emerging Investigators. This collection aims to highlight the excellent research being carried out by researchers in the early stages of their independent career from across the breadth of green chemistry.  For more information about this series, click here

The most recent contribution to this series, a Paper entitled Constructing a green oleaginous yeast cell factory for sustainable production of the plant-derived diterpenoid sclareol (DOI: 10.1039/D3GC04949C), presents a green, sustainable and efficient microbial synthesis of plant-derived sclareol through the construction of an oleaginous yeast cell factory. Sclareol is an important starting material for the synthesis of ambroxan, and it relies heavily on traditional plant extraction. At present, ambroxan is widely used to replace the ambergris extracted from the endangered sperm whales.

Read our interview with the corresponding author below.

How would you set this article in a wider context?

The sclareol chassis strain here constructed paves the way towards a sustainable, large-scale fermentation-based manufacturing of other diterpenoid compounds. The findings of this study not only demonstrate the significant potential of microbial synthesis as an alternative pathway for generating structurally complex chemicals but also establish a model for the sustainable industrial production of other valuable terpenoids.

What is the motivation behind this work?

Ambergris is a waxy substance secreted from sperm whales and has a long history of use in perfume. Sclareol is an important synthetic raw material for ambergris substitute ambroxan. However, the major sources of sclareol still rely heavily on traditional plant extraction and the low concentration of sclareol in the plant as part of a complex mixture, requires laborious and costly purification processes. Alternatively, the rapid development of synthetic biology has enabled microorganisms to emerge as potential alternatives to conventional methods for sclareol production. Therefore, we choose the oleaginous yeast Yarrowia lipolytica as the ideal platform for sustainable production of plant-derived sclareol.

What aspects of this work are you most excited about at the moment and what do you find most challenging about it?

With the elaborate design of the sclareol biosynthesis pathway and tight regulation of cell metabolism, we finally achieved highest titer of microbial sclareol, this was the most excited aspects of the entire work. The most challenging is how to well control the synthesis of unwanted byproducts caused by metabolic imbalance. We first engineered plant enzymes to improve their catalytic activity in Yarrowia lipolytica, then constructed scaffold-free multienzyme complexes with the peptide pair RIDD and RIAD to significantly alleviate the metabolic imbalance and decrease the synthesis of byproducts.

What is the next step? What work is planned?

We would like to conduct a follow-up research with further optimization of metabolic network, such as extending cytosolic acetyl-CoA pool by regulating the lipid metabolism, engineering secretion systems through specific transporter identification, and enhancing the supply cofactor NADPH. In addition, we will further achieve the production of other high-value terpenoid compounds in the oleaginous yeast chassis.

Please describe your journey to becoming an independent researcher

My academic career began after I graduated from the undergraduate program and continued my graduate studies at Nanjing Tech University, China. The transformation from a novice in scientific research to an independent researcher was due to the guidance of three supervisors. The first supervisor is Prof. He Huang, who directed my doctoral thesis at the Jiangsu Provincial Innovation Center for Industrial Biotechnology. As one of the first batch graduate students of Prof. He Huang, I received his meticulous guidance step by step, from specific experimental operations to control of the developing trends of the entire bioindustry. Thanks to his helpful cultivation, my doctoral thesis won the National Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Nomination Award of China. The second supervisor is Prof. Pingkai Ouyang, who directed my postdoctoral research at the National Research Center for Biotechnology. It was Prof. Pingkai Ouyang who taught me to dig deep into the details and try to be unique in scientific research. The third supervisor is Prof. Jens Nielsen, who was my supervisor when I was conducting visiting research at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. It was Prof. Jens Nielsen who made me understand the convenience of focusing on a certain microorganism to carry out scientific research and the importance for creating my own academic label. During my visiting researches in his laboratory, I gained a lot of experience in yeast synthetic biology, and further strengthened my training as a biochemical engineer and broadened my interdisciplinary research experiences. These educational and collaborative experiences taught me how to run and effectively manage a laboratory, how to design research projects, and ultimately trained me to become an independent researcher specializing in “synthetic biology driven biomanufacturing”.

Can you share one piece of career-related advice or wisdom with other early career scientists?

I want to share with you George Bernard Shaw’s famous quote about sharing apple: If you have an apple and I have an apple, and we exchange apples, we both still only have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea, and we exchange ideas, we each now have two ideas.

Why did you choose to publish in Green Chemistry?

Green Chemistry is a top-tier, highly respected journal with a broad readership all over the world. This journal provides a unique forum for the publication of innovative research on the development of alternative green and sustainable technologies. Our present article is highly compatible with this scope. Therefore, we have an idea of publishing our work in this prestigious journal.

Meet the author

Prof. Xiao-Jun Ji received his BSc and PhD from Nanjing Tech University in 2005 and 2009, and conducted the visiting research in the Systems and Synthetic Biology lab headed by Professor Jens Nielsen at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, during 2016 and 2017. He has received many awards such as the Fok Ying-Tung Foundation Young Scholars Award (2014), the National Technological Invention Award of China (2018), the Excellent Young Scholars of National Natural Science Foundation of China (2019), the Newton Advanced Fellowships of the Royal Society (2020), etc. His recent research focuses on bio-manufacturing of pharmaceutical and nutritional chemicals using the non-conventional yeast through metabolic engineering and the emerging synthetic biology tools.

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Introducing Luigi Vaccaro: Our new Associate Editor

We are delighted to announce that Luigi Vaccaro (University of Perugia, Italy) has been appointed as a new Associate Editor in Green Chemistry

Luigi is a Full Professor at the University of Perugia, where he leads the Green S.O.C. group, http://greensoc.chm.unipg.it. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), and before joining Green Chemistry, he was an Associate Editor for RSC Advances (2015-2024). His recognitions include the Europa Medal from the Society of Chemical Industry – London (2001), the ADP Award from Merck’s Chemistry Council for “Creative work in organic chemistry” (2006 and 2007), the G. Ciamician Medal of the Società Chimica Italiana (2007), the Lady Davis (2018) Visiting Professorship, the Pino Medal from the Organic and Industrial Divisions of the Italian Chemical Society (2023). His research is aimed at developing different aspects of chemistry to define sustainable and optimized chemical processes, combining the use of safer organic solvents, heterogeneous catalysis, and continuous-flow technology.I am honoured for this new role as an Associate Editor of Green Chemistry. Catalysis, circularity, waste-minimisation, and innovative technologies are just a few shades of the complex greater picture that green chemistry represents. I am sure that research contributions in these areas that quantitatively prove advances in terms of sustainability have and will always find a home in this journal.” – Luigi Vaccaro
Read some of Luigi’s Open Access papers in Green Chemistry: 

Read more of Luigi’s Royal Society of Chemistry publications here

Please join us in welcoming Luigi!

“We are really grateful for Luigi’s hard work and support of RSC Advances during the past 9 years, and wish him all the best in his new role with Green Chemistry” – Laura Fisher, Executive Editor, RSC Advances

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Introducing our new Green Chemistry Editorial Board member: Charlotte Williams

We are delighted to announce that Charlotte Williams (University of Oxford, United Kingdom) has been appointed as new Editorial Board Member in Green Chemistry.

Charlotte K. Williams OBE FRS is a professor of Inorganic Chemistry and Associate Head of Department (Research) in Oxford Chemistry. She is also an EPSRC Established Career Research Fellow. She heads-up a research group investigating polymerization catalysis and polymer chemistry with a particular focus on improving polymer sustainability. Her work involves close collaboration with scientists and engineers in both academic and industrial laboratories.

In 2011, Charlotte founded econic technologies which sells catalysts and processes facilitating carbon dioxide utilization (http://econic-technologies.com/). From 2003-2016, Charlotte was an academic in the Chemistry department at Imperial College London, serving as Head of Inorganic Chemistry teaching and Head of Materials Chemistry. Earlier in her career, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Cambridge University (2002-2003), working with Andrew Holmes and Richard Friend (Organometallic polymers for electronics), and at the University of Minnesota (2001-2002) working with Bill Tolman and Marc Hillmyer (zinc catalysts for lactide polymerization). She obtained her BSc and PhD from Imperial College London, the latter supervised by Vernon Gibson and Nick Long on ethene polymerization catalysis.

Her work has been recognised by prizes and awards including the Royal Society Leverhulme Medal (2022), the RSC Tilden Medal (2021) an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II for Services to Chemistry (2020), Macro Group UK Medal (2019), The Dechema Otto Roelen Medal (2018), The UK Catalysis Hub Sir John Meurig Thomas Medal (2017), the Royal Society of Chemistry Corday Morgan Medal (2016) and the Women in Science and Engineering Tech-Start Up Award (2015).

Please join us in welcoming Charlotte!

Celebrate the 15th Anniversary of companion journal Polymer Chemistry in a special collection here

 

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Introducing our new Green Chemistry Editorial Board member: Jean-Paul Lange

We are delighted to announce that Jean-Paul Lange (University of Twente and Shell Projects & Technology, The Netherlands) has been appointed as new Editorial Board Member in Green Chemistry.

Jean-Paul is the senior Principal Science Expert at Shell Projects & Technology in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where he has been exploring novel catalytic processes for producing fuels and chemicals from natural gas and oil and, for more than twenty years also from biomass and plastic wastes. His research embraces heterogeneous catalysis, chemical engineering, conceptual process design, manufacturing economics and technology strategy. Jean-Paul is also a Professor in Chemical Biorefining at the University of Twente, the Netherlands, where he is investigating thermo-chemical and -catalytic routes to convert biomass to fuels and chemicals and to recycle plastic wastes. Before joining Shell, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Lehigh University in Bethlehem (Pennsylvania, USA), got his PhD at the Fritz-Haber Institute (Max Planck Society) in Berlin (Germany) and graduated from the University of Namur (Belgium). He has co-authored more than 120 patent series, 80 scientific publications, and 10 book chapters and is co-editor of one scientific book. He also contributes to public science through various advisory boards in the Netherlands, Europe for the CEFIC and the European Commission.

Green Chemistry is sterile if not applied. It prefers simplicity over sophistication, resilience over sensitivity”. – Jean-Paul Lange

Please join us in welcoming Jean-Paul!

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Advances in Electrosynthesis for a Greener Chemical Industry is now online and free to access until the end of July 2024

We are delighted to announce that the Green Chemistry themed collection Advances in Electrosynthesis for a Greener Chemical Industry is now online and free to access until the end of July 2024.

Electrosynthesis is a fast-expanding field of research that is poised to play a critical role in the decarbonization of the chemical industry and the transition to green transformations for chemical production. This research area is less mature than traditional catalysis fields and innovations are typically scattered among multiple broad audience journals.

Guest Edited by Jean-Philippe Tessonnier (Iowa State University), Season Si Chen (Tsinghua University), Vassiliki-Alexandra (Vanda) Glezakou (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), Adam Holewinski (University of Colorado, Boulder) and Juan Lopez-Ruiz (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory). This collection brings the electrosynthesis community together and shares the latest original research, reviews, and perspectives on the electrosynthesis of chemicals and fuels.

Read the full issue online
It includes:

Editorial
Advances in electrosynthesis for a greener chemical industry
Season S. Chen, Vassiliki-Alexandra Glezakou, Adam Holewinski, Juan Lopez-Ruiz and Jean-Philippe Tessonnier
Green Chem., 2024, 26, 4240-4241. DOI: 10.1039/D4GC90025A

Critical Review
Renewable lignin and its macromolecule derivatives: an emerging platform toward sustainable electrochemical energy storage
Xueru Yang, Yufei Zhang, Minghui Ye, Yongchao Tang, Zhipeng Wen, Xiaoqing Liu and Cheng Chao Li
Green Chem., 2023, 25, 4154-4179. DOI: 10.1039/D3GC00565H

Tutorial Review
Atomically precise metal nanoclusters as catalysts for electrocatalytic CO2 reduction
Tokuhisa Kawawaki, Tomoshige Okada, Daisuke Hirayama and Yuichi Negishi
Green Chem., 2024, 26, 122-163. DOI: 10.1039/D3GC02281A

Paper
Local reactivity descriptors to decipher the electrochemical hydrogenation of unsaturated carboxylic acids
Marco Nazareno Dell’Anna, Geet Gupta, Prathamesh T. Prabhu, Ting-Hung Chu, Luke T. Roling and Jean-Philippe Tessonnier
Green Chem., 2023, 25, 10387-10397. DOI: 10.1039/D3GC02909C

Paper
Electrochemical transformation of d,l-glutamic acid into acrylonitrile
Justus Kümper, Jérôme Meyers, Rebecca Sebers, Nils Kurig and Regina Palkovits
Green Chem., 2023, 25, 6231-6237. DOI: 10.1039/D3GC01045G

We hope you enjoy reading the articles. Please get in touch if you have any questions about this themed collection or Green Chemistry.

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