Green Chemistry Blog

Scientists from L’Oréal show how green chemistry principles have been integrated into the development of new processes and ingredients at the company, illustrating the company’s commitment to sustainable chemistry.

The group led by Michel Philippe based at the L’Oréal Research & Innovation centre in Aulnay-sous-Bois, France, provide detailed examples of how green chemistry principles have been used in the development of key processes such as C-glycosylation in water, and ceramide synthesis from renewable materials.  Philippe and colleagues also discuss a list of green indicators which have been set up to advance the eco-design of ingredients in the future.  These are:

• An ‘atom economy’ calculation
• The E-factor – with the aim of lowering this during scale-up and industrialisation
• The level of renewable carbon in the final ingredient
• The environmental risk of the final compound (according to European guidelines for PBT assessment)

This article will be free to access until the 23rd March 2012!  Click on the link below to find out more…

Industrial commitment to green and sustainable chemistry: using renewable materials & developing eco-friendly processes and ingredients in cosmetics, Michel Philippe ,  Blaise Didillon and Laurent Gilbert, Green Chem., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2GC16341A

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Scientists from Taiwan have developed a cheap and green method for producing nanocrystalline silicon thin films.

Silicon-based thin films have widespread applications including microelectronics, optoelectronics and photovoltaics.  Although there are several methods for producing these films, they can suffer from drawbacks such as high production costs or the resultant films possessing poor electronic properties. 

In this work Kuei-Hsien Chen, Li-Choyong Chen and colleagues from National Taiwan University and Academia Sinica, Taipei, used a magnesiothermic reduction process to successfully convert the surface of soda lime glass into a silicon thin film.  This involves using thermal evaporation to deposit a thin layer of magnesium onto the glass, followed by heating to produce the silicon.  The film thickness can easily be controlled by varying the reaction time, and the band gaps of the resulting films were within the range of 2.3-2.5 eV.

This article is free  to access until the 21st March 2012!  Click on the link below to find out more…

Patterned growth of nanocrystalline silicon thin films through magnesiothermic reduction of soda lime glass, Deniz P. Wong, Hsiang-Ting Lien, Yit-Tsong Chen, Kuei-Hsien Chen and Li-Chyong Chen, Green Chem., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2GC16459K

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Canadian scientists report using polyamine derivatives as switchable water additives to salt out water-miscible organic compounds.

Philip Jessop and colleagues from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario and Concordia University, Montréal, Quebec, have developed an efficient system for the removal of water-miscible organic compounds using a recyclable “switchable water” system.  The system can be changed from low to high ionic strength by the simple introduction of CO2, and removal of CO2 afterwards restored the solvent system for reuse again. 

The team found that alkylammonium bicarbonate salts derived from polyamines were particularly additives as they could provide solutions of greater ionic strength at lower loadings in water, and have developed a set of principles for the design of future switchable water additives.

This article is free to access until the 14th March 2012!  Click on the link below to read more…

Design, synthesis, and solution behaviour of small polyamines as switchable water additives, Sean M. Mercer, Tobias Robert, Daniel V. Dixon, Chien-Shun Chen, Zahra Ghoshouni, Jitendra R. Harjani, Soran Jahangiri, Gilles H. Peslherbe and Philip G. Jessop, Green Chem., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2GC16240G

You may also be interested in these related articles, free to access for 2 weeks…

Tertiary amine solvents having switchable hydrophilicity, Philip G. Jessop, Lisa Kozycz, Zahra Ghoshouni Rahami, Dylan Schoenmakers, Alaina R. Boyd, Dominik Wechsler and Amy M. Holland, Green Chem., 2011, 13, 619-623

A solvent having switchable hydrophilicity, Philip G. Jessop, Lam Phan, Andrew Carrier, Shona Robinson, Christoph J. Dürr and Jitendra R. Harjani, Green Chem., 2010, 12, 809-814

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Scientists from Denmark and the USA report the conversions of various pentoses and hexoses into methyl lactate and related products by using a Sn-Beta catalyst.

Esben Taarning and colleagues show that this Lewis Acidic zeotype material can convert hemicellulosic sugars into methyl lactate, glycoaldehyde dimethylacetal and methyl vinylglycolate.  The fact that this catalyst is able to convert both hexoses and pentoses to methyl lactate opens up the possibility of employing it in reactions with crude sugar mixtures.  This has major advantages over microorganism-catalysed reactions of sugars, as many microorganisms will often only use specific sugars as substrates.

This article will be free to access until the 12th March 2012!  Click on the link below to find out more…

Sn-Beta catalysed conversion of hemicellulosic sugars, Martin S. Holm, Yomaira J. Pagán-Torres, Shunmugavel Saravanamurugan, Anders Riisager, James A. Dumesic and Esben Taarning, Green Chem., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2GC16202D

You may also be interested to read these articles by the same authors – free to access for 2 weeks!

Production of liquid hydrocarbon fuels by catalytic conversion of biomass-derived levulinic acid, Drew J. Braden, Carlos A. Henao, Jacob Heltzel, Christos C. Maravelias and James A. Dumesic, Green Chem., 2011, 13, 1755-1765

Dependency of the hydrogen bonding capacity of the solvent anion on the thermal stability of feruloyl esterases in ionic liquid systems, Birgitte Zeuner, Tim Ståhlberg, Olivier Nguyen van Buu, Andreas Jonas Kunov-Kruse, Anders Riisager and Anne S. Meyer, Green Chem., 2011, 13, 1550-1557

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Read about two of our latest hot articles on one-pot syntheses of heterocycles…

Yong Huang (Peking University, China) and Hong Shen (Merck Research Laboratories, New Jersey, USA) and colleagues report the synthesis of medicinally useful heterocycles such as pyridazinones and dihydropyrimidinones through a mild and highly efficient one-pot triple cascade procedure.  The cascade involves a Claisen-decarboxylation, an electrophilic reaction and subsequent heterocyclisation.  Indazoles and benzofurans could also be constructed through a double cascade reaction.  Click on the link below to find out more…

One-pot synthesis of useful heterocycles in medicinal chemistry using a cascade strategy, Guiyong Wu, Weiyu Yin, Hong C. Shen and Yong Huang, Green Chem., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2GC16457D

Li-Rong Wen, Ming Li and colleagues from Qingdao University of Science and Technology, China, present the efficient, solvent-free synthesis of imidazo[1,2-α]pyridine derivatives via a one-pot three-component reaction.  The reaction involves annualtion of heterocyclic ketene aminals and β-oxodithioesters with aldehydes using ET₃N as the catalyst. The procedure is completed quickly with high regioselectivity and allows for easy purification.  Click on the link below to find out more…

Solvent-free and efficient synthesis of imidazo[1,2-a]pyridine derivatives via a one-pot three-component reaction, Li-Rong Wen, Zhao-Rui Li, Ming Li and Han Cao, Green Chem., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2GC16388H

These articles are free to access until the 2nd March 2012!  

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