By Anthony Maiorana, polymer chemist and writer of The Polymerist Newsletter

If we think about modern industrial chemistry, things really took off around the 1940s as steam cracking, catalytic cracking, and the use of synthetic materials started to become widespread. The widespread availability of refined oil at low costs over the last 60 years created less of a need for refining chemicals from biomass, but crude oil is inherently finite on a human time scale. Over the last few decades we have seen the growth of green chemistry and engineering principles in academia and the chemical industry for numerous reasons, but one of them is the potential future scarcity of oil as a chemical feedstock. If you are reading this then, it is likely through the ACS Green Chemistry Institute and I won’t get into the specifics of green chemistry principles, but I will attempt to write about the utilization of biomass in industrially relevant specialty polymers and plastics.

By Ian Mallov, research chemist at Inkbox Ink

When Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson offered $25 million for the invention of an efficient carbon sequestration technology in 2007, an Oregon environmentalist named Andy Kerr cheekily submitted a drawing of

The ACS Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) Pharmaceutical Roundtable honors the work of Stephen Dalby, Francois Levesque, Cecilia Bottecchia and Jonathan McMullen at Merck with the 2021 Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry & Engineering Impact in the Pharmaceutical Industry. The team’s innovation is titled, “Greener Manufacturing of Belzutifan (MK-6482) Featuring a Photo-Flow Bromination.”

Contributed by Louis J. Diorazio, Chemical Development, Pharmaceutical Technology & Development, Operations, AstraZeneca, Macclesfield, United Kingdom

In the heat of scientific progress and corporate challenges, the role of solvents is often downplayed. It can be easy to assume that a solvent merely dissolves materials, indeed, awareness of solvents for the general public is generally restricted to situations such as cleaning a stain or grease with "a bit of solvent". 

By Isamir Martinez, Ph.D., PMP, Scientific Alliances & Business Engagement Manager, ACS Green Chemistry Institute; Stefan Koenig, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Genentech; and, Ben I. Andrews, Investigator of Chemical Development, Product Development & Supply, GlaxoSmithKline

Aiming to employ oligonucleotides (ON), which are short deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules, as medical remedies has been a goal of scientists and physicians for some time.  As genetic information is carried forth from DNA through RNA, and eventually to the protein output via the central dogma of biology, there exist invaluable opportunities to address illness before it manifests itself. 

By David Constable, Science Director, ACS Green Chemistry Institute

I’ve always had a tendency to ask questions, it’s sort of how I’m made.  For those of you who have had children, you might surmise that I never got out of the one-question-leads-to-another

By Dr. Love-Ese Chile, Founder and Technical Director, Regenerative Waste Labs

Since the industrial revolution, scientists have been innovating at a faster rate than ever before. These scientific discoveries and disruptions have been miracles for some, br

 By David Constable Science Director, ACS Green Chemistry Institute

Over the past few months we’ve highlighted the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), showing just a few of the many ways in which chemistry plays an enormous part in achieving the goa

The ACS Green Chemistry Institute® convened companies in the oil and gas industry at the annual ACS GCI Hydraulic Fracturing Roundtable recently to discuss greener chemicals and processes in hydraulic fracturing. Baker Hughes hosted the meeting at their W

By David Constable, Science Director, ACS Green Chemistry Institute

In 2013, members of the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute (ACS GCI) Chemical Manufacturers Roundtable (ChMRT), conceived a project to identify how to fundamentally change

By Christiana Briddell, Sr. Communications Manager, ACS GCI; Jennifer MacKellar, Program Manager, ACS GCI; Marta Gmurczyk, Safety Portfolio Manager, ACS

Today’s environmental headlines are replete with sustainability topics from climate change to plastics

Representing the largest body of chemists in the world, the American Chemical Society has an important role to play in supporting its members and working with partners committed to addressing global sustainability challenges. In part two of this series, w

Dr. Bryony Core, Senior Technology Analyst at IDTechEx

We live in the age of plastic. Our lives have become so enmeshed with it that it is becoming impossible to avoid in day to day life. Its uses are myriad: saving lives in medical devices, reducing carbo

The American Chemical Society's Green Chemistry Institute (ACS GCI) was honored to partner with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to host the 2019 Green Chemistry Challenge Awards ceremony and reception at the EPA headquarters in Washington D.C. th

Contributed by Samy Ponnusamy, Fellow & Global Manager, Green Chemistry, MilliporeSigma

The 12 principles of green chemistry provide a conceptual framework for green chemistry that is globally accepted, which was an important starting point.  As the practi