By ACS Green Ch

The ACS Southeastern Regional Meeting (SERMACS) was held in San Juan, Puerto Rico on October 18-22. The program had a strong component of sustainability with a series of six sessions organized and presided by H.N. Cheng, ACS Past President and Juan Colberg, Pfizer. ACS Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) staff, Christiana Briddell and Isamir Martinez, were on site to engage the energized participants from all over the southeast U.S. and Puerto Rico.

The ACS Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) will be at ACS Fall 2022 in Chicago—please stop by our booth (533) in the Expo to chat, test your knowledge and win green chemistry swag! The Expo is open Monday and Tuesday from 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., and Wednesday from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. While you are in the Expo, be sure to also stop by the Recharge & Social Media Lounge to tell us how your chemistry connects to one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Participants will be posting short videos to Instagram. More information about the campaign and virtual participation options will be forthcoming!

Contributed by Christine Aurigemma, Pfizer, San Diego, CA, USA

The “Integration of Greener, Process-Friendly Approaches for Monitoring Reactions for Pharmaceutical End-Game Chemistry” session featured quality speakers from industry and academia, including the Chief Scientific Officer of a chemistry CRO, on a broad spectrum of topics from microfluidics to process analytics at the plant scale. These presentations touched on various green and sustainable tools and techniques for improving process control while reducing waste and were in alignment with the conference theme "Sustainable Production to Advance the Circular Economy."

Contributed by Dr. Michal Freedhoff, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Green Chemistry Challenge Awards and it’s an opportunity to celebrate a quarter century of groundbreaking scientific solutions that have and will continue to make a positive impact on human health and the environment.

That’s why I’m looking forward to joining you at the Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference in June to present the 2021 Green Chemistry Challenge Awards on behalf of ACS and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These awards are a wonderful way for us to recognize innovation by American businesses and researchers that have redesigned chemical products and processes to reduce or eliminate the use and manufacture of hazardous substances. These innovations help protect vulnerable communities, prevent pollution at its source, and keep U.S. businesses globally competitive by creating more sustainable products. 

Contributed by Samy Ponnusamy, Ph.D., Fellow & Global Manager – Green Chemistry, MilliporeSigma, St Louis, MO; Srinivasan Ambatipati, Ph.D., Assistant Professor & Coordinator of Chemical Engineering, McNeese State University, Lake Charles, LA

In this year’s GC&E Conference, we have organized a technical symposium on the topic “Design of Chemicals, Novel Chemistries, Synthetic Pathways & Processes that Enable a Circular, More Sustainable Economy”. Case studies will be presented to illustrate how industry and academia have successfully implemented novel design strategies to achieve a more circular and sustainable economy. The examples from the session will describe the design and approaches taken, the challenges faced and how a solution for the challenge was achieved. Also, this session will discuss the importance of implementing sustainability as a basic design criterion to successfully achieve a closed-loop economy.

Contributed by Natalie J. O’Neil, Higher Education Program Manager, Beyond Benign and Mevan Dissanayake, BE Planar PCD Regen Process Engineer at Intel Corporation

What comes to mind when you visualize your future green chemistry or engineering career? Is the term “Green” in your title? Did you find it based on the specific call out for those skills in the job posting? If you are searching for a position, you may be disappointed when limited or no search results appear with the terms “Green Chemistry” or “Green Engineering”. Does that mean these careers do not exist? No, they do—trust us! Many future careers in academia, industry, nonprofits and government agencies have an increasing priority placed on hiring students with the skills to design and apply safer, more sustainable chemicals, materials, products, and processes. Join us to learn how to leverage your green credentials in various career paths and hear how others have built a career under the umbrella of green chemistry and engineering.

Contributed by Natalie O’Neil, Higher Education Program Manager, Beyond Benign, David A. Laviska, Assistant Professor, Seton Hall University and Michael Wentzel, Associate Professor, Augsburg University

This fast-paced and engaging symposium at the 25th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering (GC&E) Conference will provide educators of all levels (K-12, undergraduate, and graduate) with the opportunity to learn about innovations and initiatives for incorporating green chemistry content in lecture, laboratory, and outreach activities.

Contributed by Eric G. Moschetta (Center for Reaction Engineering - Process R&D, Abbvie Inc.), Benjamin Rizkin (Process Research & Development, Abbvie, Inc.), and Nick Uhlig (Process Development, Gilead Alberta ULC).

The ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable’s flow chemistry team has organized a symposium for this year’s Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference titled “Flow chemistry and continuous processing enabling sustainable chemical development and manufacturing”. This full-day session will include presentations on a broad range of topics with a common focus on process intensification, integrated multi-step processes, efficient use of materials and energy sources, and waste mitigation.

Contributed by Dr. Nimrat K. Obhi, Program Manager, Higher Education, Beyond Benign

It is essential that current and future scientists are able to understand and practice chemistry that supports good health and well-being. Additionally, it is critical that chemistry is used in ways that align with responsible consumption and production. Ensuring that we have this understanding of green chemistry helps us as a society better work towards the 17 key global Sustainable Development Goals outlined by the United Nations in 2015.