Industrial chemistry and chemoecology are linked together to realize a modern and sustainable chemistry

Meeting society's needs without damaging the environment requires new ways of thinking. The link of industrial chemistry and chemoecology will be one of the key factors of sustainable development within the chemicals industry

Environmental assessment of bio-based chemicals in early-stage development: a review of methods and indicators

Climate change and fossil resource depletion are driving a transition to a bio-based economy, for which novel bio-based chemical processes need to be developed. The environmental performance of the novel bio-based chemicals should be assessed during their development, when the production process can still be adapted, although data availability is limited. Many environmental assessment methods applicable during product development ('early-stage methods') exist in the literature. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of these early-stage methods and to evaluate to what extent they are suitable for assessing bio-based chemicals in their early-stage development. The paper first describes the characteristics of early-stage chemical design and the environmental impacts of bio-based products based on published life cycle assessments. Low data requirements, the inclusion of climate change and energy indicators, and the inclusion of environmental impacts from biomass feedstock production are identified as three good-practice principles for early-stage assessment of bio-based chemicals. In the second step, 27 early-stage assessment methods are reviewed and categorized based on their scope and environmental indicators used. Finally, the reviewed methods are evaluated using the good-practice principles. A perfect early-stage method does not exist. However, choosing the most suitable method(s) based on the goal of an assessment and using complementary indicators leads to the most effective assessment for novel bio-based chemicals in development

Development of a method for environmentally friendly chemical peptide synthesis in water using water-dispersible amino acid nanoparticles

Due to the vast importance of peptides in biological processes, there is an escalating need for synthetic peptides to be used in a wide variety of applications. However, the consumption of organic solvent is extremely large in chemical peptide syntheses because of the multiple condensation steps in organic solvents. That is, the current synthesis method is not environmentally friendly. From the viewpoint of green sustainable chemistry, we focused on developing an organic solvent-free synthetic method using water, an environmentally friendly solvent. Here we described in-water synthesis technology using water-dispersible protected amino acids

One-Step UV-Induced Synthesis of Polypyrrole/Ag Nanocomposites at the Water/Ionic Liquid Interface

Polpyrrole (PPy)/Ag nanocomposites were successfully synthesized at the interface of water and ionic liquid by one-step UV-induced polymerization. Highly dispersed PPy/Ag nanoparticles were obtained by controlling the experimental conditions. The results of Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed that the UV-induced interface polymerization leaded to the formation of PPy incorporating silver nanoparticles. It was also found that the electrical conductivity of PPy/Ag nanocomposite was about 100 times higher than that of pure PPy

One-Pot Green Synthesis and Bioapplication ofl-Arginine-Capped Superparamagnetic Fe3O4 Nanoparticles

Water-solublel-arginine-capped Fe3O4 nanoparticles were synthesized using a one-pot and green method. Nontoxic, renewable and inexpensive reagents including FeCl3,l-arginine, glycerol and water were chosen as raw materials. Fe3O4 nanoparticles show different dispersive states in acidic and alkaline solutions for the two distinct forms of surface bindingl-arginine. Powder X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to identify the structure of Fe3O4 nanocrystals. The products behave like superparamagnetism at room temperature with saturation magnetization of 49.9 emu g−1 and negligible remanence or coercivity. In the presence of 1-ethyl-3-(dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide hydrochloride, the anti-chloramphenicol monoclonal antibodies were connected to thel-arginine-capped magnetite nanoparticles. The as-prepared conjugates could be used in immunomagnetic assay

A diverse view of science to catalyse change

Valuing diversity leads to scientific excellence, the progress of science and, most importantly, it is simply the right thing to do. We must value diversity not only in words, but also in actions