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Green Chemistry |
by Paul T. Anastas and David Allen Chemical products can be manufactured using a wide variety of synthesis routes. The designer of a chemical process must choose from alternative raw materials, solvents, reaction pathways, and reaction conditions, and these design choices can have a significant impact on the overall environmental performance of a chemical process. Ideal chemical reactions would have attributes such as
In general, chemical reactions cannot achieve all of these goals simultaneously and it is the task of chemists and chemical engineers to identify pathways that optimize the balance of desirable attributes. Identification of environmentally preferable pathways requires creative advances in chemistry as well as process design. Because the number of choices in selecting reaction pathways is so large and the implications of those choices are so complex, systematic, quantitative design tools for identifying green chemistries are not available. Nevertheless, an extensive body of knowledge concerning green chemistry exists and some qualitative and quantitative design tools are emerging. Green chemistry, defined as the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances, will be presented in two basic parts - one qualitative and the other quantitative. The first part will describe qualitative principles to be used in developing alternatives - alternative solvents, alternative reactants, alternative chemistries - that may lead to environmental improvements. Section 7.2 provides this overview of qualitative principles that can be used to identify green chemistry alternatives. Section 7.3 describes quantitative, optimization based approaches that have been used to identify environmentally preferable reaction pathways. Finally, Section 7.4 briefly describes the US Environmental Protection Agency's Green Chemistry Expert System, which provides case studies of many of the principles described in this chapter. |
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