Description
C PUBLISHING Ecol-Friendly Synthesis Of Fine Chemicals by Ballini R
The 20th century has seen a phenomenal growth in the global economy and continuous improvement in the standard of living in the industrialized countries. Sustainable development has become an ideal target in recent years and in the early 1990s the concept of "Green chemistry" was launched in the USA as a new paradigm, and since 1993 it has been promoted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The success of the pharmaceutical industry is, in large part, due to the towering achievement of organic chemistry, a mature science which emerged as a distinct discipline well over 150 years ago, however this has been both a blessing and a curse. Many of our most reliable strategies for assembling target molecules employ reactions which are fifty to one hundred years old and are often named in honour of their discoverers. During these early years, the chronic toxicological properties of chemicals were often completely unknown and many unwittingly became indispensable tools of the trade. Early pioneers in green chemistry included Trost (who developed the atom economy principle) and Sheldon (who developed the E-Factor). These measures were introduced to encourage the use of more sustainable chemistry and provide some benchmarking data to encourage scientists to aspire to more benign synt.