chemistry essay

chemistry essay

The Impact of Green Chemistry on Sustainable Development

1. Introduction to Green Chemistry

Main Objective: To integrate the principles and concepts of green chemistry into a country’s or region’s policy of sustainable development. The practice of green chemistry seeks to reduce the use of hazardous substances in the design, manufacture, and application of chemical products. This guide provides decision makers, project organizers, and staff with background information on industrial systems and green chemistry in the paper manufacturing sector (particularly the kraft pulping industry) in order to help them develop or promote the planning of sustainable and environmentally friendly projects.

Green chemistry refers to the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. This encompasses a multitude of principles and techniques, including the minimizing and/or dematerializing of chemical feedstocks used, a shifting towards using renewable feedstocks over those that are based on fossil resources, and the need to design chemical products and processes that possess little to no toxicity to human and environmental health, and demonstrate the ability to degrade once they have been used. It also refers to the practice of designing processes to minimize their waste. These principles are becoming increasingly valuable and encompassing to many different disciplines and sectors of both public and private interest. As of 2006, green chemistry had become a major focus in many global corporations where it is practiced in pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, brewing, and other industries.

2. Principles and Practices of Green Chemistry

Those practicing green chemistry build from an operational foundation that emphasizes five core components of environmental responsibility. These operating components are hazard reduction, design of energy efficient reactions, unit operation that minimize waste and the use of auxiliary substances, selection of safe, renewable feedstocks, and the use of a product to greatly decrease lifecycle hazards. The achievement of sustainability and the use of green chemistry are interdisciplinary. This philosophy provides an opportunity for cross-cultural, interdisciplinary dialogues among synthetic organic chemists, inorganic and coordination chemists, physical chemists, expert clinicians interested in medical applications of toxicology, mineral resources engineers, and entrepreneurs to delineate what needs to be done to help preserve and develop a habitable earth. The ability to communicate among such diverse groups is essential.

An explosion of interest and energy has been directed towards the concept and practice of sustainability in the past decade. Accompanying this has been the innovative adaptation of environmental principles to the conceptual framework of green chemistry. In fact, the home page of the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute very clearly states that green chemistry is “… the utilization of a set of principles that reduces or eliminates the use or generation of hazardous substances in the design, manufacture, and application of chemical products.” This section contains an in-depth overview of the principles and practices of green chemistry. The principles of green chemistry served as a framework for the development of environmentally friendly chemical processes, which, when incorporated into the design and operation of a process, can have far-reaching effects on materials, energy, and human life.

3. Applications of Green Chemistry in Various Industries

In the agriculture industry, a keen interest cannot be overemphasized in aligning the broader scientific research using green chemistry approaches with the emerging field of biotechnology whose focus seems to be the genetic modification of crops. This area of research has attracted massive funding and is aligned closely within the overall strategy of promoting sustainable agriculture on a global basis. For example, partnerships have been developed that explore the genetic variability of phytoremediation properties in plants from major phytogeographic regions of the world. The plant results from this exploration have in turn contributed to pushing forward the various approaches (e.g., bioessays, bioarrays, etc.) within hazardous chemical solutions. Adaptation of this approach by the natural health formulations industry would go a long way in assessing the appropriateness for developing products that can be maintained in the WHO sector of priority pharmaceuticals for interviews and the possibility of developing a program with the Office of Dietary Supplements committed to providing support for a green chemistry technology that will need federal, industrial, and multiple international partnerships to exist. In addition, the Translational Metaomics interventions promoted jointly using the UKMRC-NCATS-DGHI conference can contribute to WHI Research and Development partnerships where supplements reach beyond phase one to treat neglected tropical diseases caused by several pathogens.

The successful practice of green chemistry is spreading across several industries. In the pharmaceutical field, for instance, the application of green chemistry reduces the environmental impact coming from the poor biodegradable waste and high-production costs. In addition, the reduced cost, energy use, and waste associated with the molecular design procedure enables the advancement of valid “neglected” or “orphan” pharmaceutical items based on the potency of the pharmaceutical molecules selected rather than on profit. Hence, the development of WHI research programs demonstrates already the revival of existing compounds or patented molecules, and it seems that producers can compensate their exclusive right of manufacture, use, and sale of these drugs by satisfying the high quality needed for their applicants and regulating organizations. The final benefit then will be that the formulations that will be made and distributed under each individual equivalent examination are safe, pose no known additional health risk, and are interchangeable with regard to the drug’s safety and efficacy; an interchangeable alternative must be bioequivalent or therapeutically equivalent and must meet the criteria for the term as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

4. Challenges and Future Directions in Green Chemistry

In the decades between the formalization of the Principles of Green Chemistry by Warner and its further systematic reflection of chemical transformation after 2000, we have learned a significant amount of new facts about the molecular basis of these phenomena and have developed a number of new fundamental concepts and strategies for the avoidance of unwanted components. The main obstacles to realizing these opportunities are the flow of funds, inaccurate segmentation of market segments, insufficient volume of market analysis and development of regulatory frameworks and market access, etc. In addition, new focus on research and innovation for sustainable chemistry, ecology and life system sciences is the focus of discussion in scientific, policy, and industry discussions around the world. In conclusion, the complexity of green chemical transformation still requires an overall inter- and transdisciplinary approach that is relevant to both social life systems and transnatural systems. Meaningful and socially meaningful approaches contribute to ethics and sustainability. The Center for the Ethical Development of Research and Innovation of Life Sciences also has to assign and manage meaningful prioritization strategies.

Several challenges have been identified in the development and implementation of green chemistry. A shift to new technology often involves large capital investment, with typically long payback periods. Developers and consumers also bear high risks due to the natural unpredictability. Regulatory measures, in some cases, remain a barrier to implementation. For example, the Substance of Very High Concern (SVHC) list under REACH does not distinguish between different EtD indicators and does not label Raw Materials Enter the Final Cleaning Phase. It is also important to achieve a better understanding of the potential consequences of the implementation of green chemistry, a culture that is necessary to mitigate the risks.