Themed collection Green Chemistry 25th Anniversary Collection

There has been an explosive growth in environmentally driven startups in recent years.

Exploring the potential of renewable glycerol and its derivatives for the preparation of active pharmaceutical ingredients in light of regulatory constraints.

The Green Chemistry Commitment (GCC) was founded in 2013 to host a community of practice around green chemistry in higher education. 10 years later, the GCC empowers a worldwide community to use chemistry tools to create a sustainable planet.

Some of the latest technological developments involving chemistry in water are discussed.

Environmental benefit will be greatest if we green the step causing the most harm.

A comprehensive overview of the cutting-edge applications of ionic liquids in new energy, electronic information chemicals and biotechnologies.

Digital chemistry methods accelerated discoveries of sustainable processes but require assessing and minimizing their carbon footprint caused by the required computing power.

Methanesulfonic acid (MSA) bridges organic and inorganic green chemistry since it is a strong non-oxidizing organic acid with a very low vapor pressure and forming highly soluble metal salts.

Bio-inspired materials and design serve as a source of inspiration for the design of electrodes, electrolytes, interfaces and devices, inducing flexibility, selective ionic transport, self-healing properties or biodegradability.

Recent advances in the decarboxylative transformation of biomass-derived carboxylic acids to produce biofuels and high-added value chemicals via photo- or electrocatalysis strategies are reviewed.

An overview of sustainability outcomes provided by flow chemistry is reviewed for a comprehensive understanding and a holistic perspective. Future trends and potential innovations are also forecast.

MXenes offer environmentally friendly alternatives to conventional N₂ fixation methods via potential optimization of their catalytic activity and circumventing some synthesis challenges.

Solvents are essential for chemical synthesis and material preparation; however, traditional solvents face challenges in meeting safety and sustainability standards.

Indicators and methods for safe and sustainable by design chemicals and materials.

DESs play a Janus role (chemical or physical) in the preparation of materials. The physical aspect includes solvating, exfoliating, dispersing and confining, while the chemical part includes reacting, composing, polymerizing and modifying.

Solvent effects are pivotal steps in carbohydrate utilization by modulating solute-solvent interactions.

An overview on lignin modification and applications possibilities is provided. Importantly, a quantitative comparison of all discussed literature procedures in terms of sustainability is included.

Tuning steric environment of hydrophobic deep eutectic solvents improves dissolution selectivity of rare earth elements.

A highly efficient heterogeneous Cp*Rh(III) catalysts were developed for continuous-flow C–H amidation reactions of phenyl pyridines. The catalyst maintained the activity for 200 h continuous reaction without leaching of Rh species.

Herein, we present electrochemical depolymerisation as a promising new technique for chemical recycling of polylactic acid.

Overcoming solubility challenges in polypropylene (pp) coatings: a scalable, environmentally friendly approach utilizing partial oxidation and recycled materials.

Attractive Pickering emulgels with droplet clusters are formed via the interdroplet electrostatic attraction between cellulose nanocrystals and interfacial-adsorbed chitin nanofibers.

Three-phase partitioning systems based on designed hydrophobic eutectic solvents allow a sustainable pretreatment of blood samples to improve the detection of bisphenol A, paving the way for their application in a variety of biomonitoring studies.

Naturally occurring and structurally diverse alkene-containing substrates, terpenes, provided a platform for establishing chemo-, regio-, and diastereoselective reactivity in tantalum catalysed hydroaminoalkylation.

A guide has been developed, highlighting various sustainability criteria of solvents used in the paints and coatings industry.

Analysis of over 700 chemical production routes showing that decision making towards more environmentally sustainable pathways is enhanced by combining mass- and energy-based process metrics with simplified life cycle impact indicators.

Concept of plasma co-upcycling waste plastics and CO₂. CO₂ serves as an oxidant and carbon source to depolymerize polyolefins into platform chemicals, whereas plastics enhance CO₂ conversion. Fatty alcohols are selectively produced by adding O₂.

Precursors of ammonium salt biosurfactants have been obtained from HMF by coupling cobalt-catalyzed reductive amination with selective bio-esterification using an immobilized lipase CALB. The process has been optimized in batch and flow reactors.

Continuous manufacturing of platform chemicals from lignocellulose is highly desirable for a fossil fuel independent future.

The open-source Excel LCA tool ESTIMATe allows non-LCA experts to assess the environmental impact of CCU chemicals.

A non-noble metal catalyst, MoO_x–Cu–Na/TiO₂, was found to be highly efficient in the deoxydehydration (DODH) of vicinal diols into olefinic compounds.

A simple and recyclable homogeneous catalytic system for the hydrogenation of carbon monoxide to methanol was established.

The structure of humins, a major side-product of carbohydrate biorefining, is complex and to a large extent unknown. A multitechnique characterization of an industrial humin provides new structural insights.

Herein, we report an operationally simple addition of hydrazones to carbonyl compounds using an earth-abundant metal, under aqueous and aerobic conditions.

Carbon-negative H₂ can be produced by coupling APR technology with CO₂ sequestration. APR of glycerol over NiPt bimetallic catalyst coupled with CCUS can produce H₂ with negative GHG emissions (–57 CO₂ eq. per kg H₂) using renewable electricity.

This work reports the analysis of 59 commercially available polymers from 20 different polymer classes for thermal properties, macrostructure, molecular mass distribution, and inorganic and organic additives, highlighting the need to characterize research polymers prior to recycling studies.

A Pt–Fe bimetallic catalyst is developed to produce 1,2-pentanediol from furfural under mild conditions of 140  °C and 0.1 MPa H₂, affording by far the highest production rate.

The grand transition towards green pathways for chemical production, alongside ambitious climate policies, could achieve 90% reduction in climate change impacts by 2050, while fossil routes offer a reduction of 10% in the best case.

The first series of Silverton {UMo₁₂O₄₀}-based polyoxomolybdates linked by Fe^II, Co^II, and Ni^II were synthesized and characterized. They exhibited excellent stabilities and were used as heterogeneous catalysts for the synthesis of quinazolinones.

Counter-current chromatography is an effective unit operation for simultaneous aromatic monomer–monomer and monomer–oligomer separations from oil derived from reductive catalytic fractionation of lignocellulosic biomass.

Operationally simple photo-nickel C(sp²)–S cross-coupling with a reusable heterogeneous photocatalyst.

A solid-phase method favors the formation of Shiff-bases from chitosan and aldehydes and subsequent reduction. This provides access to alkylated chitosans with high degrees of functionalization with low process mass intensity.

Sustainable development of pharmaceuticals relies on the selection and integration of unified metrics and indicators. Herein, we present a standardized method to assess, report, and communicate environmental sustainability of development processes.

Reaction and substrate scopes may be considerably broadened in the context of the chemical valorisation of biomass, using stable solid acid catalysts consisting of nanostructured silica–niobia which outperformed pure niobia and other catalysts.

A multi-decagram scale synthesis of enantioenriched N,S-ketals was achieved by using a robust heterogeneous organocatalyst. A new reactor design was crucial to enable the scaling up of this reaction while the overall catalyst loading below 0.1%.

A novel and efficient method has been developed for the modification of amino acids using a dimethyl carbonate (DMC) in an acidic system.

We demonstrate a novel route for the upcycling of poly(phenylene oxide) (PPO) into dimethylanilines using a bimetallic Pd₇Ru₃/CNT catalyst. This represents the first successful transformation of PPO into nitrogen-containing compounds.

A surprisingly simple approach to increasing the mechanical properties of lignin-based carbon fiber by leveraging a newly discovered thermo-mechanochemistry of lignin.

Pyrethrins are effective agents against mosquito larvae, but their rapid degradation rate in water reduces their deinsectization efficiency and increases the cost of deinsectization.

Biomass-derived solvents have been proposed as a novel pathway in biorefining for the realization of biofuels and bioproducts derived from lignocellulosic biomass.

The stabilized amorphous Al₂O₃ phase stabilizes the Cu⁺ site through oxidation state control, thereby improving the selectivity and activity for the production of the C₂₊ product.

Reductive amination of carboxylic acids under mild conditions was achieved using an Al₂O₃-supported Pt–Mo catalyst. Various carboxylic acids including biomass-derived fatty acids were successfully converted to their corresponding alkylamines.

Cobalt molybdate (CoMoO₄) was synthesized by a simple and environmentally friendly evaporation method and it exhibited excellent catalytic performance for the selective hydrodeoxygenation of lignocellulosic ketones to their corresponding olefins.

Supported PdSn catalysts are highly effective for the direct synthesis of hydrogen peroxide showing significantly higher selectivity to comparable PdAu catalysts.

A new, green esterification and thioesterification method has been developed based on the intermediacy of in situ-generated 2-thiopyridine esters derived from dipyridyldithiocarbamate (DPDTC).

Carbon-to-carbon (C–C) cross-coupling reaction (CCR) protocols represent a major breakthrough in synthetic chemistry.