E-Paper
GREEN CHIMESTRY
Pollution, poisonous pesticides, chemicals, industrial waste, consummerism are global phenomena. Green chemistry is the solution for countries like India where incidents like the Bhopal gas tragedy haunt us. Scientists are out to eliminate the production and processing of hazardous chemicals, averting pollution and designing people friendly innovations. The first four-day Indo-US workshop that intended to formulate a Green Chemistry strategy was held at New Delhi recently.
Pollution, poisonous pesticides, chemicals, industrial waste, consummerism are global phenomena. Green chemistry is the solution for countries like India where incidents like the Bhopal gas tragedy haunt us. Scientists are out to eliminate the production and processing of hazardous chemicals, averting pollution and designing people friendly innovations. The first four-day Indo-US workshop that intended to formulate a Green Chemistry strategy was held at New Delhi recently.
Father of Green Chemistry, Prof Paul Anatas spoke about not only creating an awareness about Green Chemistry in the scientific community but also linking it with the citizens.He set out 12 principles:
It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean it.
Synthetic ways should be designed to maximise incorporation of all materail used in the process into final products.
Whenever practicable, synthetic methodologies should be designed to use and generate substances that pose little or no toxicity to human health and environment.
Chemical products should be designed to preserve efficacy of function while reducing toxicity.
The use of auxiliary substances (e.g. solvents, separation agents, etc.) should be made unnecessary.
Energy requirement should be recognised for their environmental and economic impact and minimised.
Synthetic method should be conducted at ambient temperature and pressure.
A raw material of feedstock should be renewable rather than depleting wherever technically and economically practicable.
Unnecessary derivatistion (blocking group, protection/deprotection, temporary modifications of physical/chemical processes) should be avoided whenever possible.
Catalytic reagents (as selective as possible) are superior to stoichiometric reagents.
Chemical products should be designed so that at the end of their function they do not persist in the environment and break down into innocuous degradation products.
Analytical methodologies need to be furthur developed to allow for real –time, in-process monitoring and control prior to the formation of hazardous substances.
Substances and the form of a substance used in a chemical process should be chosen so as to minimize the potential for chemical accidents, including releases, explosions, and fires.
USA, UK, Japan, Italy, Australia and other developed nation have already given Green Chemistry top priority.
According to Dr Sanjay Sogani of Ranbaxy (a drug manufacturing Co.) discovery and development of each new drug takes 12 years and $350 million for appropriate consumption at human level. During the process of developing drugs all those technologies and high throughput analytical screening be coupled with Green Chemistry. Green screening could go in pre-clinical trials and clinical trials thereby reducing cost, effort, time for the welfare of human beings.
