R&D in the Institute for Green Science (IGS) at Carnegie Mellon University will be sketched. Our focus is on TAML catalysts which are small molecule replicas of peroxidase enzymes. Achieved following many years of directed iterative design, TAMLs faithfully mimic the major features of the efficient peroxidase enzyme catalytic cycle and typically perform close to stoichiometric requirements in peroxide use. From the 1995 achievement of the prototype, TAMLs have held an ever-improving position through iterative design as the most technically effective homogeneous peroxide-activating catalysts across both chemistry and biology. TAMLs have given us a beta-testing system for the Five Performances Logic we have developed at the IGS as a platform for Safe and Sustainable chemical design; Safe and Sustainable Chemistry (S&SC) is the name the EU Commission has given to the field it will develop to cope with the sustainability challenges of chemicals. S&SC products and processes will be distinguished by high quantified technical, cost, health, environmental, and fairness performances, not just the reigning first two of old. In the IGS, we pursue projects where chemists have vital roles to play for sustainability’s sake, but where few are engaged. Thus, rather than study the use of TAMLs in synthesis, we have focused of their use in destroying water pollutants, especially micropollutants (MPs) that are toxic at low concentrations; endocrine disruption is often the underlying mechanism of MP toxicity. Municipal, industrial, and agricultural wastewaters are usually contaminated with MPs that cause dramatic injuries to aquatic ecosystems. I will highlight aspects of the mechanistic chemistry of the TAML/peroxide catalytic cycle and TAML/peroxide treatment of municipal wastewater that is easily competitive in technical performance with ozone, but far easier and likely will be far cheaper to deploy. This is an example of how TAMLs have opened the field of Sustainable Ultra-dilute Oxidation Catalysis (SUDOC); in this wastewater example, low nM TAML activates low mM peroxide to rapidly destroy low pM to low nM MPs. Sudoc, LLC will be introduced as a 2-year-old startup that is optimizing TAML processes around the Five Performances logic for advancing S&SC technologies.

TAML catalysts enable the new field of sustainable ultra-dilute oxidation catalysis (SUDOC) as a tool for water treatment and other applications

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