Themed collection Sustainable Laboratories

Chemistry, the science of transformation of matter, is fundamental to achieving sustainability through ensuring biogeochemical flows do not transgress planetary boundaries. This requires urgent changes in chemistry education, research and industry.

Single-use, disposable, point-of-care diagnostic devices carry great promise for global health, but present some challenges in terms of environmental sustainability. This perspective covers solutions to embed sustainability at the R&D and product development stages.

A two-year collective effort towards the reduction by 50% of the usage of 7 hazardous solvents (Green Chemistry Principle #5) within a large-scale industrial R&D organization.

The progresses on continuous-flow organocatalysis from 2016 to early 2020 are reviewed with focus on transition from batch to flow.

The convergence of end-to-end continuous flow synthesis with downstream processing, process analytical technology (PAT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and automation in ensuring improved accessibility of quality medicines on demand.

Standardized process simulation approach for techno-economic and carbon footprint evaluation of large scale oxymethylene ether production accounting for the complexity of the reactive formaldehyde containing system.

We review the emerging use of flow technologies for circular chemistry and material manufacturing, highlighting advances, challenges, and future directions.

Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are a valid alternative to common organic solvents and ionic liquids (ILs) as solvent media for organic oxidation reactions.

The green aspects of the lignin-derived monomers and polymers have been analysed. A different viewpoint has been provided to encourage researchers to use simple and yet effective green metrics calculations in the development of sustainable syntheses.

This review presents a comprehensive roadmap for the production of HMF from biomass and the upgradation of HMF toward fuels, chemicals and materials.

Despite their wide use in many fields, common dipolar aprotic solvents are urged to be replaced because of their detrimental effects on health and environment. Therefore, green replacement strategies in synthesis have been summarized.

Analysis of a promising lignin-first biorefining technique, reductive catalytic fractionation, provides useful metrics for cost and sustainability to guide researchers toward critical areas for improvement.

Life cycle analysis allows comparison of RP-HPLC to SFC.

Advances in green chemistry over the past 25 years have improved sustainability in the development of new cosmetic and personal care products.

We propose a new methodology involving reverse design of solvent molecules and evaluation of their molecular properties for a more efficient and less empirical selection of green solvents for organic photovoltaic device fabrication.

Covalent organic frameworks have been prepared in sustainable solvents by a solvothermal method, and their porosity and crystallinity were predicted using QSPR and machine learning approaches.

A novel method to standardize and automate material flow/waste mapping in economies by integrating mechanistic engineering models and macroeconomic framework is proposed for identifying pathways to transition towards low carbon/zero waste economy.

A solvent-reagent selection guide for Steglich esterification has been developed. Safer, more sustainable solvent-reagent combinations were identified and optimized for this transformation effectively replacing the more harmful, toxic status quo.

An approach for screening solvent systems for PSCs to substitute REACH restricted DMF with no loss in device performance.

The interest in green and sustainable solvents has been dramatically increasing in recent years because of the growing awareness of the impact of classical organic solvents on environmental pollution and human health.

Artificial intelligence in combination with design of experiments for sustainable process development achieving high quality metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) with minimal environmental effect.

Catalysis discovery is typically limited to specialized labs – this work demonstrates an Artificially Intelligent Microreactor Lab in a Box applied to investigate the chemistry of different co-catalysts for zirconocene-catalyzed olefin polymerization.

Updated methodology and scoring of the sustainability credentials of a total of 154 solvents, including 44 new additions.

A methodology, based on a combination of SH&E criteria, enables a simplified greenness evaluation of any solvent, in the context of fine or pharmaceutical chemistry.

A unified metrics toolkit has been developed to evaluate sustainability of reactions, encompassing a comprehensive and holistic range of criteria for measuring how green a reaction is, covering quantitative and qualitative criteria both upstream and downstream of the reaction itself.

The data given in the published solvent guides have been compiled. An acceptable alignment of the classifications could be met.