A better quality of living through Green Chemistry

  Most people don’t think too much about chemicals, but actually they are all around us. Many substances consist of chemicals, including the air that we breathe and the water that we drink. Some chemicals are natural, but most of them are artificial and may be harmful to human body.

   In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the United States and destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, so displaced people had to move into temporary housing. Later, some of them began experiencing headaches and nosebleeds due to formaldehyde exposure. This pungent chemical is commonly found in glue that holds many household products and pressed wood furniture together. It has been classified as a carcinogen since 2011 and has been linked to an increase in asthma and allergies in children. It has also been regulated as a toxic chemical by the Environmental Protection Administration in Taiwan.

    However, there is another choice: natural adhesive. In particular, one made from soy proteins that have been modified to resemble the protein that some shellfish use to stick to rocks. A natural adhesive is now widely used in composite wood products in the U.S. Other companies are also developing more natural alternatives to hazardous industrial chemicals. This is a part of the Green Chemistry philosophy.

  Green Chemistry is a way of rethinking how to develop products and processes that are more environmentally friendly, better for people’s health and yet are economically feasible. That includes reducing processing waste, using renewable materials and lessening the energy required to manufacture products. The 12 Principles of Green Chemistry lay out the goals of this approach to chemical research and the chemical industry. The first is prevention. It is better to prevent waste than to treat it or clean it up. Another principle encourages less hazardous chemical synthesis. Chemical reactions should be designed to be as safe as possible. Energy efficiency is encouraged as well as using chemicals made from renewable plant-based sources rather than petrochemical ones. Attention also needs to be paid to monitoring pollution in real time and choosing and developing chemical procedures that are safer and that minimize the risk of accidents.

  There are challenges in meeting and holding to the principles of Green Chemistry, but this will spur new research and inspire the discovery of new chemistry. Green Chemistry can decrease pollution and increase the sustainable development of the earth, thus improving the quality of life for humans and animals for years to come.

The 12 principles of Green Chemistry is:

• Prevent waste
• Atom ecomony
• Less hazardous chemical synthesis
• Designing safer chemicals
• Safer solvents and ausillaries
• Design for energy efficiency
• Use of renewable feedstocks
• Reduce derivatives
• Catalysis (vs. stoichiometric)
• Design for degradation
• Real-time analysis for pollution prevention
• Inherently safer chemistry for accident prevention