The sustainability of chemical processes is of increasing importance within the chemical industry and is becoming a key concern for a wider range of practitioners. Embedding sustainability earlier on in the R&D process in the agrochemical and pharmaceutical arena is becoming increasingly prevalent due to both the immediate alignment with organizational and government policy as well as potentially beneficial impacts further downstream in the manufacturing process. Solvent is the largest component used within chemical reactions and has been estimated to account for over half of the total material used to manufacture bioactive ingredients. Accordingly, solvent has been identified as a priority area for green chemistry research based on the direct and substantial impact that change in this area may have. Direct implementation of a solvent replacement strategy is not entirely straightforward for two main reasons. (1) It is very difficult to determine the effects of the direct replacement of a particular solvent in a specific reaction – efficiency and selectivity may be negatively impacted in ways that cannot be predicted a priori. (2) FTEs in the industrial setting don’t necessarily have the time to invest into re-optimization of reactions that already work sufficiently well for their purposes. This presentation will discuss several studies designed to ease the transition to a more sustainable solvent selection within reactions of widespread use.

Supporting the transition to increased sustainability in common reactions

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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