Green Chemistry Blog

Green Chemistry Advisory Board member Christian Stevens has won first prize in the Energy & sustainability stream of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Emerging Technologies Competition 2015. In this third year of the competition, applications were also accepted from outside the UK which enabled Christian and Wouter Ducheyne, of Ghent University and Caloritum in Belgium, achieve this success.

Their winning technology is a ‘Chemical pump for recovery of industrial waste heat’ and was developed jointly by the University of Ghent and Caloritum. It is an industrial chemical heat pump that can recover waste heat between 75-150°C and increase this to a useful heat level of over 200°C. This is a bio-inspired technology, being based on the phosphate transfer in the ATP-ADP cycle that occurs in the human body. Addressing a problem that cost the EU over €52bn per year, the patented technology can be implemented in production processes ranging from the petrochemical industry to food production and power generation.

The Emerging Technologies Competition is the Royal Society of Chemistry’s flagship annual innovation event and saw thirty teams pitch their emerging technologies to experienced judging panels. There are three streams to the competition: Healthcare, Energy & sustainability, and Materials and the top three teams in each stream received a prize at the ceremony on Monday 29^th June 2015. First prize winners receive a cash prize of £20,000, a profile in Chemistry World magazine, and a personalised package of tailored business support from one or more of the competition partner companies – all of which are major multinationals (such as Croda, Procter & Gamble, Pfizer, GSK etc.) with considerable experience in bringing new products to market.

We would like to congratulate Christian Stevens and Wouter Ducheyne for achieving this accolade.

Pictured: Christian Stevens (left) and Wouter Ducheyne (right), pitching at the annual innovation event.

We are pleased to welcome Dr Martina Peters as a new Green Chemistry Editorial Board Member. Martina Peters studied Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University in Germany and at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA. She finished her PhD with Prof. Walter Leitner at RWTH Aachen University in 2008 and continued as PostDoc at the CAT Catalytic Center at RWTH Aachen. In 2010 she joined Bayer Technology Services as project manager, focusing on chemical utilization of CO2 as C1-building block for polymers. In 2012 she became head of “Chemical Catalysis” at Bayer Technology Services, a team providing chemical expertise for different areas of application within Bayer. Since mid-2014 Martina is a senior strategists at Bayer AG in the area of Technology and Manufacturing Strategy. In her free time she enjoys doing sports, especially mountain biking. Take a look at some of her contributions to Royal Society of Chemistry Journals (free to access until 30th August 2015):

Life cycle assessment of CO2 capture and utilization: a tutorial review, Niklas von der Assen, Philip Voll, Martina Peters and André Bardow , Chem. Soc. Rev., 2014,43, 7982-7994, DOI: 10.1039/C3CS60373C

Screening of new solvents for artemisinin extraction process using ab initio methodology, Alexei A. Lapkin, Martina Peters, Lasse Greiner, Smain Chemat, Kai Leonhard, Marcel A. Liauw and Walter Leitner, Green Chem., 2010,12, 241-251, DOI: 10.1039/B922001A

Read a selection of Roger’s papers – free to access until 15th June 2015:

The E Factor: fifteen years on, Roger A. Sheldon, Green Chem., 2007,9, 1273-1283
DOI: 10.1039/B713736M,

Green solvents for sustainable organic synthesis: state of the art, Roger A. Sheldon, Green Chem., 2005,7, 267-278
DOI: 10.1039/B418069K,

Biocatalysis in ionic liquids, Roger A. Sheldon, Rute Madeira Lau, Menno J. Sorgedrager, Fred van Rantwijk and Kenneth R. Seddon, Green Chem., 2002,4, 147-151
DOI: 10.1039/B110008B,

Professor Dr Roger A. Sheldon—65 years on, Ilya I. Moiseev,   Shun-Ichi Murahashi,   Martyn Poliakoff,  Kenneth R. Seddon and   Vytas K. Švedas, Green Chem., 2008,10, 270-270
DOI: 10.1039/B719347P

We are pleased to announce that Green Chemistry’s Editorial Board Chairman, Prof. Walter Leitner of RWTH Aachen University, was awarded two distinguished lectureships in China for his contribution to green chemistry science and application.

On 5th March in Beijing, Prof. Leitner delivered the “Molecular Forum Lecture” awarded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Chemical Society during a visit at the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Science. In addition to this, on 6th March he received  the Nankai Lectureship in Organic Chemistry, awarded by the State Key Laboratory of Elemento-organic Chemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry at Nankai University in Tianjiin. His lectures focused on the challenges and opportunities associated with the use of biomass or carbon dioxide as renewable carbon sources. The presentations highlighted the importance of catalysis research at the interface of molecular and engineering sciences for green and sustainable chemistry.

We are delighted to welcome Professor Motomu Kanai and Dr Helen Sneddon as new Editorial Board members for Green Chemistry.

Motomu Kanai

Professor Motomu Kanai was born in 1967 in Tokyo, Japan, and received his bachelor degree from The University of Tokyo (UTokyo) in 1989 under the direction of late Professor Kenji Koga. In the middle of his PhD course in UTokyo (in 1992), he obtained an assistant professor position in Osaka University under the direction of Professor Kiyoshi Tomioka. He obtained his PhD from Osaka University in 1995. Then, he moved to University of Wisconsin, USA, for postdoctoral studies with Professor Laura L. Kiessling. In 1997 he returned to Japan and joined Professor Masakatsu Shibasaki’s group in UTokyo as an assistant professor. After doing lecturer (2000~2003) and associate professor (2003~2010), he is currently a professor in UTokyo (since 2010). He is also the PI of ERATO Kanai Life Science Project (since 2011). He has received The Pharmaceutical Society of Japan Award for Young Scientists (2001), Thieme Journals Award (2003), Merck-Banyu Lectureship Award (MBLA: 2005), and Asian Core Program Lectureship Award (2008 and 2010, from Thailand, Malaysia, and China). His research interests entail design and synthesis of functional molecules, such as catalysts and drug lead molecules.

Helen Sneddon

Dr Helen Sneddon read Natural Sciences at Christ’s College, Cambridge University, and stayed at Cambridge to complete her PhD in organic chemistry, on b-keto-dithianes and their application to the synthesis of natural products, with Professor Steven V. Ley.  After postdoctoral work on the asymmetric catalytic chemistry of Palladium (II) with Professor Larry Overman at the University of California, Irvine, she joined GlaxoSmithKline at Stevenage, UK in 2007 as a medicinal chemist, working on respiratory medicines.  In late 2011 she founded GSK’s Green Chemistry Performance Unit, a team she continues to lead, looking at improving the environmental sustainability of research and development, and the routes arising from it. She was made Honorary Professor of Sustainable Chemistry at the University of Nottingham in August 2014.  She has particular interests in solvent and reagent selection and the development of more efficient transformations.

Take a look at some of their recent contributions to Royal Society of Chemistry journals:

Reaction mediated artificial cell termination: control of vesicle viability using Rh(I)-catalyzed hydrogenation
Hirokazu Komatsu, Yuki Daimon, Kohsaku Kawakami, Motomu Kanai, Jonathan P. Hill and Katsuhiko Ariga
Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2014, DOI: 10.1039/C4CP02255F, Paper

Catalytic enantioselective synthesis of 2-(2-hydroxyethyl)indole scaffolds via consecutive intramolecular amido-cupration of allenes and asymmetric addition of carbonyl compounds
Prasanna Kumara Chikkade, Yohei Shimizu and Motomu Kanai
Chem. Sci., 2014, DOI: 10.1039/C3SC52803K, Edge Article

Sustainable chromatography (an oxymoron?)
Emily A. Peterson, Barry Dillon, Izzat Raheem, Paul Richardson, Daniel Richter, Rachel Schmidt and Helen F. Sneddon 
Green Chem., 2014, DOI: 10.1039/C4GC00615A, Perspective

We are delighted to announce that Walter Leitner, Green Chemistry Editorial Board Chair, has been awarded the 2014 European Sustainable Chemistry Award alongside Jürgen Klankermayer, also from the Institute of Technical and Macromolecular Chemistry at the RWTH Aachen University.

The European Sustainable Chemistry Award is intended to be a prestigious scheme to raise the profile of sustainable chemistry and be a spur to innovation and competitiveness. The ESCA was initially launched in 2010 by EuCheMS and its current prize amounts to €10,000. A full list of sponsors can be found on the website.

The Award covers innovations in the following scientific areas:

– the use of alternative synthetic pathways, that increase resource efficiency and selectivity e.g. with the help of catalysis or natural processes

– the use of alternative feedstocks which are safer and/or renewable e.g. based on biomass

– the use of alternative reactor design and reaction conditions, such as use of solvents which deliver health and environmental benefits, or increased yield and reduced waste and emissions

– the design and use of chemicals and chemical products that are, for example, less environmentally harmful than current alternatives, or inherently safer with regard to hazardous concerns

Visit the website for more information on the EuCheMS and the prizes awarded.

Green Chemistry Advisory Board member Professor Richard Wool has won the 2013 Presdiential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for Academic research. He has been recognized for his research in creating several materials from less toxic and renewable biobased feedstocks such as vegetable oils, chicken feathers and flax that can be used as adhesives, composites, foams, and even circuit boards and as a leather substitute. Professor Wool is currently the Director of the ACRES (Affordable Composites from Renewable Resources) Program at the University of Delaware.

Green Chemistry would like to extend our congratulations to Professor Wool on this achievement.