I&EC 139 |
| Chromatography offers an illustration of how the acceptance of new methods can advance the goals of sustainability. The main objective of green chemistry is to promote research, development, and implementation of innovative chemical technologies that accomplish pollution prevention in a scientifically sound and cost-effective manner. In industrial settings, a significant amount of solvents and other chemicals are used in the purification processes based on separations to assure that requisite quantity and quality have been achieved. Besides quality control and analytical R&D, testing is also done in various areas such as manufacturing, in-process testing, pilot-scale production, and formulation. In the not-too-distant past, solvent–solvent extractions were commonly used to extract the desired materials to purify them. One of the solvent was generally at various pHs and the other was a nonpolar solvent. The nonpolar solvents of choice were generally chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, etc. This meant that at times a large volume of potentially carcinogenic solvent(s) had to be vaporized to obtain the desired material. The evolution of chromatographic methods in the beginning of the twentieth century have ushered in methods that require a minimal amount of solvents. These methods in order of development and/or acceptance by separation chemists are column chromatography (CC), paper chromatography (PC), thin-layer chromatography (TLC), gas chromatography (GC), high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), capillary electrophoresis (CE), and supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). The utilization of more modern chromatographic techniques (viz. GC, HPLC, CE, and SFC) has helped solve complex problems that have added greatly to the well-being of humanity. Discussion will focus on how these methods use miniscule amount of solvents and avoid utilization of carcinogenic solvents thereby effectively meeting or exceeding the goals of green chemistry in that besides pollution prevention there is a real cost savings in terms of utilization of solvents and disposal of solvent waste. |
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Incentives and Barriers to the Adoption of Sustainable Chemistry Poster Session
6:00 PM-8:00 PM, Wednesday, April 9, 2008 Morial Convention Center -- Rm. 232, Poster
Division of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry |