In 2005, the Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded for the discovery of a catalytic chemical process called metathesis – which has broad applicability in the chemical industry. It uses significantly less energy and has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for many key processes. The process is stable at normal temperatures and pressures, can be used in combination with greener solvents, and is likely to produce less hazardous waste.

In 2012, Elevance Renewable Sciences won the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award by using metathesis to break down natural oils and recombine the fragments into high-performance chemicals. The company makes specialty chemicals for many uses, such as highly concentrated cold-water detergents that provide better cleaning with reduced energy costs.

Green chemistry encompasses a broad area of endeavor.  It is not covered by a narrow definition and does not offer a “silver bullet” type solution because it is essentially a reaction to a variety of issues.  Ranging from dangerous and wasteful production processes and a heavy reliance on increasingly expensive petroleum to the persistence in the environment of toxic substances with far-reaching (and increasingly well-understood) effects on human and animal growth, these problems call for equally diverse solutions.  Green chemistry is the expansive discipline that is evolving in response to this wide array of challenges and, according to a new report from Pike Research, represents a market opportunity that will grow from $2.8 billion in 2011 to $98.5 billion by 2020.

There is currently considerable interest in applying the principles of green chemistry and sustainability to industrial organic synthesis, particularly in the fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries.

In any synthesis of a target molecule, the starting materials that are made to react with a reagent under appropriate conditions. Before coming to a final decision, consider all the possible methods that can give the desired product. The same product can also be obtained by modifying the conditions. The method of choice should not use toxic starting materials and should eliminate by-products and wastes. Following are some of the important considerations.

Chemical synthesis was the most dominant application market; with catalyst demand exceeding 1,800 kilo tons in 2013, owing to growth in chemical production, particularly in Asia Pacific and Latin America. Environmental catalysis another key application market, accounting for over 29% of global catalyst demand in 2013 and is expected to witness fastest growth, at an estimated CAGR of 3.9% from 2014 to 2020; on account of growing preference towards the production of clean fuels and use of green technology in manufacturing process.

Sustainable and Green Chemistry in very simple terms is just a different way of thinking about how chemistry and chemical engineering can be done. Over the years different principles have been proposed that can be used when thinking about the design, development and implementation of chemical products and processes. These principles enable scientists and engineers to protect and benefit the economy, people and the planet by finding creative and innovative ways to reduce waste, conserve energy, and discover replacements for hazardous substances.

Green chemistry can also be defined through the use of metrics. While a unified set of metrics has not been established, many ways to quantify greener processes and products have been proposed. These metrics include ones for mass, energy, hazardous substance reduction or elimination, and life cycle environmental impacts.

“Green Chemistry is the utilization of a set of principles that reduces or eliminates the use or generation of hazardous substances in the design, manufacture and applications of chemical products”.

Principles of Green Chemistry:

1. Prevention, 2. Atom Economy, 3. Less Hazardous Chemical Syntheses 4. Designing Safer Chemicals, 5. Safer Solvents and Auxiliaries, 6. Design for Energy Efficiency, 7. Use of Renewable Feedstocks, 8. Reduce Derivatives, 9. Catalysis, 10. Design for Degradation, 11. Real-time analysis for Pollution Prevention, 12. Inherently Safer Chemistry for Accident Prevention

Statistics from the American Chemical Society (ACS) showed that the value of chemicals produced on a global scale in 2009 was in the order of 3.700 billion dollars ($). The countries with the highest production of chemicals were: USA (689 Billions $), China (549 Billions $), Germany (263 Billions $), France (158 Billions $), Brazil (126 Billions $), Great Britain (123 Billions $), Italy (122 Billions $), Netherlands (81 Billions $), Russia (77 Billions $).

The biggest chemical industries in yearly sales at the international arena in 2007 were: BASF (Germany, 65 billions $, sales), Dow Chemicals (USA, 53 billions $, ΗΠΑ), INEOS (Great Britain, 43 Billions.$), Lyondell Basell (Switzerland, 42 billions $), Formosa Plastics (32 Billions $, South Korea), Du Pont (28 Billions $, USA), BAYER (Germany), Mitsubishi (Japan), Akzo Nobel/Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) (The Netherlands/ Great Britain).

The  use  of  hazardous  and  toxic  solvents in chemical laboratories  and  the  chemical  industry  is  considered  a  very  important  problem  for  the  health and  safety  of  workers and  environmental pollution.  Green Chemistry aims  to change  the  use  of  toxic  solvents  with  greener  alternatives,  with  replacement and  synthetic  techniques,  separation  and  purification  which  do  not  need  the use of solvents.   

One  of  principles  of  Green  Chemistry  is  to  promote  the  idea  of “greener” solvents (non-toxic,  benign  to  environment),  replacement  in  cases that   can   be substituted   with   safer   alternatives,   or   changes   in   the methodologies of organic synthesis, when solvents are not needed

Quantifying the environmental impact of chemical technologies and products, and comparing alternative products and technologies in terms of their “greenness” is a challenging task. In order to characterize various aspects of a complex phenomenon, a number of different indicators are selected into a metric. Green Chemistry conference outlines fundamental developments in chemistry and chemical technology that have led to the development of green chemistry, green chemical technology, and sustainable chemical technology concepts, and provide a foundation for the development of the corresponding metrics. It includes different approaches to metrics, and case study examples of their applications, and problems in practice.

Clean technology includes recycling, renewable energy (wind power, solar power, biomass, hydropower, biofuels, etc.), information technology, green transportation, electric motors, green chemistry, lighting, Greywater, and many other appliances that are now more energy efficient. It is a means to create electricity and fuels, with a smaller environmental footprint and minimize pollution. To make green buildings, transport and infrastructure both more energy efficient and environmentally benign. Environmental finance is a method by which new clean technology projects that have proven that they are "additional" or "beyond business as usual" can obtain financing through the generation of carbon credits. A project that is developed with concern for climate change mitigation (such as a Kyoto Clean Development Mechanism project) is also known as a carbon project.

Global organic personal care market size was estimated at USD 8.43 billion in 2013. Rising consumer awareness regarding personal health safety is expected to support the market growth over the forecast period. Decreasing use of harmful chemicals including phthalates, aluminum salts and parabens coupled with committed efforts from numerous multinational corporations of shifting towards sustainable products has contributed to increasing consumption of organic personal products. However, fluctuation in raw material supply is expected to pose a threat over the forecast period.

Organic synthesis is a special branch of chemical synthesis and is concerned with the construction of organic compounds via organic reactions. Organic molecules often contain a higher level of complexity than purely inorganic compounds, so that the synthesis of organic compounds has developed into one of the most important branches of organic chemistry. There are several main areas of research within the general area of organic synthesis: total synthesis, semisynthesis, and methodology.

A total synthesis is the complete chemical synthesis of complex organic molecules from simple, commercially available (petrochemical) or natural precursors. Total synthesis may be accomplished either via a linear or convergent approach. In a linear synthesis—often adequate for simple structures—several steps are performed one after another until the molecule is complete. The chemical compounds made in each step are called synthetic intermediates. For more complex molecules, a different approach may be preferable: convergent synthesis involves the individual preparation of several "pieces" (key intermediates), which are then combined to form the desired product.

Global catalyst market for Petroleum refining, Chemicals and Polymer Synthesis is expected to reach USD 19 billion by 2019 from an estimated size of 15.3 billion in 2014 growing at a CAGR of 4.4%. Asia Pacific is the largest regional market for catalysts accounting for a 33 % market share in 2013. That is owing to the fact that the region has 35% of the world’s petroleum refining and polymer synthesis capacity. Polymer synthesis catalysts accounting for 29% of the market are expected to grow at a slightly higher rate. Increasing demand for polymers and automobiles and imposition of regulations for development of better standard products is expected to enhance the worldwide demand over the forecast period although advances will be limited by weak motor vehicle demand in North America, Europe and Japan.

In the past, the industrial production of Adipic acid used benzene as a starting material. Benzene is one of the basic chemicals for industrial reactions and a solvent. It is known that derives mainly from the refining processes of the petrochemical industry. Benzene is also known for its carcinogenic properties (it causes leukemia to highly exposed workers). Afterwards the starting material became cyclohexanone or a mixture of cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol. For the oxidation process it was used nitric acid, producing toxic fumes of nitric oxides, NOx, which are also contributors to the greenhouse effect and the destruction of the ozone layer in the strat osphere. It was Inevitable that the method had to be changed again with more environmentally benign reactions.

The global market for lactic acid is estimated to witness high growth, due to rising demand from its end-use applications. It is used in the production of PLA plastics that are mainly used in packaging products that comply with environmental norms. Polylactic acid is a thermoplastic polyester. It is derived from renewable feedstock such as sugarcane, corn starch, wheat, and tapioca roots. PLA products contain bio-based renewable constituents. The lactic acid market is projected to reach USD 3.82 Billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 18.6% during the forecast period.The polylactic acid market is projected to reach USD 5.16 Billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 20.9% during the forecast period.

An analytical method or analytical technique is a method to determine the concentration of a chemical compound or element in a sample.  There is a very wide variety of methods used for analysis which afford different degrees of sample preparation and instrumentation

At the global scale and in the broadest sense sustainability and environmental safety management involves managing the oceans, freshwater systems, land and atmosphere, according to sustainability principles.

Land use change is fundamental to the operations of the biosphere because alterations in the relative proportions of land dedicated to urbanization, agriculture, forest, woodland, grassland and pasture have a marked effect on the global water, carbon and nitrogen biogeochemical cycles. Management of the Earth's atmosphere involves assessment of all aspects of the carbon cycle to identify opportunities to address human-induced climate change and this has become a major focus of scientific research because of the potential catastrophic effects on biodiversity and human communities. Ocean circulation patterns have a strong influence on climate and weather and, in turn, the food supply of both humans and other organisms.

Corporate spending on environmental health and safety (EH&S) software is set to soar over the next five years, as economic recovery and tightening regulations combine to drive demand for sustainability software systems. 

That is the conclusion of a new report from corporate sustainability research firm Verdantix, which predicts corporate spending on EH&S software will grow at 15 per cent a year through to 2018, creating a $1bn market across eight leading economies by 2018.

The market projections are based on data for 9,307 firms with more than $500m in annual revenue headquartered in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, the UK and the US.

Green engineering approaches the design of products and processes by applying financially and technologically feasible processes and products in a manner that simultaneously decreases the amount of pollution that is generated by a source, minimizes exposures to potential hazards (including reducing toxicity and improved uses of matter and energy throughout the life cycle of the product and processes). In so doing, the overall health and ecological stress and risk are reduced. As such, green engineering is not actually an engineering discipline in itself, but an overarching engineering framework for all design disciplines.

Green nanotechnology refers to the utilization of nanotechnology to upgrade the ecological supportability of procedures delivering negative externalities. It additionally alludes to the utilization of the results of nanotechnology to improve manageability. It incorporates making green nano-items and utilizing nano-items as a part of backing of maintainability.

Green nanotechnology has been portrayed as the advancement of clean advances, "to minimize potential natural and human wellbeing dangers connected with the assembling and utilization of nanotechnology items, and to support supplanting of existing items with new nano-items that are all the more ecologically agreeable all through their lifecycle

Green marketing is the showcasing of items that are dared to be naturally desirable over others. Thus green marketing joins an expansive scope of exercises, including item adjustment, changes to the generation process, economical bundling, and in addition altering publicizing. Yet characterizing green promoting is not a straightforward assignment where a few implications cross and repudiate one another; a sample of this will be the presence of shifting social, natural and retail definitions appended to this term. Other comparable terms utilized are ecological advertising and environmental showcasing.

Regardless which report seems more credible, the green building materials market will more than double within the next five years at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) predicted to be 12.5 percent -- and that’s big, really big.

Three years ago in 2012, the green buildings material market was $106.32 billion. ATransparency Market Research report, Green Building Materials Market -- Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth Trends and Forecast predicts the green materials market will grow to $234.77 billion by 2019, with green insulation as the largest market segment. In September 2014, another report from Global Industry Analysts projected the global green building material market to reach $529 billion by 2020, an even rosier outlook.

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