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.

By David A. Laviska, Assistant Professor at Seton Hall University and Sarah Prescott, Associate Professor at the University of New Hampshire, Manchester

It’s not uncommon for academics working in the sciences to feel a sense of isolation (no, this isn’t a reference to the COVID pandemic that has forced an extra measure of isolation on all of us). Depending on individual research interest(s) and prior training, it’s likely that most chemists feel some sense of “working in a vacuum”. How many of us are lucky enough to have close working colleagues who have expertise similar to our own? In most traditional academic settings, each scientist occupies a unique niche and this intellectual siloing can hinder the sharing of ideas and collaborative innovation, both in the research laboratory and in teaching. The latter can be especially challenging since major changes in the classroom (for gateway courses in particular!) tend to be much more broadly “visible” to all the stakeholders in higher education (students, fellow faculty, and administration).

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 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.

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". 

Contributed by Drs. Deanna Scheff and Amie Norton, USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS)

Promoting food security and reducing agricultural waste through new and innovative technologies is the topic of the session “Decreasing the Environmental Footprint by Decreasing Agriculture Waste” which we have organized for this year’s virtual GC&E Conference. This symposium brings together agricultural economists, chemists, engineers, and entomologists from around the world into one interactive symposium to talk about the science and technology behind reducing agricultural waste.

As spring arrives in the Northern Hemisphere and the vaccine rollout continues, there is much to be hopeful for in the year to come. This spring, it seems the seedlings of change in chemistry education, planted by many over the years, are also beginning to emerge. Here in the ACS Green Chemistry Institute (GCI), our vision of influencing the way students learn chemistry in the undergraduate gateway courses (general and organic chemistry) is taking shape.  Starting in January, we began working with 36 educators from across the U.S. and Canada to develop green and sustainable chemistry (GSC) modules for these courses. Seeing these modules take shape is inspiring and exciting!

Contributed by Joe Sagues, Assistant Professor, North Carolina State University, & Matteo Grattieri, Assistant Professor, University of Bari Aldo Moro

The ACS Green Chemistry Institute and iScience are sponsoring an exciting session at this year’s GC&E conference called “Electrosynthesis of Chemicals & Fuels”, which will showcase leaders in industry, academia, and national labs. This session will bring together experts from two distinct, yet highly related fields: 1) microbial electrosynthesis and 2) catalytic electrosynthesis. The intention of this session is to exploit exciting synergies that exist between these two research areas, and to foster collaborations and future research directions in this highly multidisciplinary field. The session will address multiple challenges present in the field of electrosynthesis. These challenges include, but are not limited to, 1) C-C bond formation for C2+ compounds, 2) electrochemical wiring of bacteria and high product selectivity, 3) energy efficient processes with low overpotentials, 4) improved mass transfer of gaseous substrates, and 4) techno-economic viability & commercialization. A diverse group of researchers will be speaking with backgrounds ranging from synthetic biology, electrochemistry, catalysis, and process engineering.

It has been a full year since most of us began working from home. The accelerated rollout of vaccines brings hope for an end to the pandemic in the near future.  In the meantime, we will continue to share our science through such virtual events as the ACS Spring 2021 National Meeting, April 5-30, and the Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference, June 14-18. 

By Aurora Ginzburg, Ph.D., Chemistry Education Program Specialist, ACS Green Chemistry Institute

I recently read the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus report, How People Learn II (HPL2), and was struck by the many potential opportunities for education in green and sustainable chemistry to address the report’s findings on improving learning outcomes. Some of these opportunities are summarized below.

Dr. Jonathon Moir, Program Manager, GCTLC, Beyond Benign

My name is Dr. Jonathon Moir and I am thrilled to be writing to you today as the new Program Manager for the Green Chemistry Teaching and Learning Community (GCTLC). The GCTLC—an online platform set to launch in 2023—is a joint initiative announced in December by the ACS Green Chemistry Institute and Beyond Benign that will help revolutionize the way green chemistry educational resources are shared and further catalyze collaboration, networking and mentorship among educators, students, industry stakeholders and community members.