Paper
Introduction: Sustainable Chemistry.
Published Jan 24, 2018 · I. Horváth
Chemical reviews
126
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Influential Citations
Abstract
T fast and sometimes rampant expansion of human endeavors has resulted in unexpected and dynamic interactions between the growing population, food consumption, industrial development, and environmental damages. In particular, the environmental and health impacts of the production, distribution, use, and discharge of chemicals at larger and larger quantities in a practically closed environment have raised global concerns and resulted in the definition of sustainable development in the 1980s. The World Commission on Environment and Development stated in their report, entitled “Our Common Future”, that sustainable development ′′should meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. While short-term needs can be identified with high certainty, longterm predictions have been unreliable due to the end of history illusion and the extremely fast rate of scientific and technical advances. Although our track record for predicting economic changes or societal transformations has been even more unreliable, most of the next generation definitions and metrics combined ecological, economical, and societal components at different portions. In 2015, the United Nations identified 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) with specific targets for the next 15 years. The SDGs require the cooperation of all corners of life and will be measured by global, regional, and national indicators. The EU has also developed a set of sustainable development indicators, which were defined by 10 sustainable development strategy objectives. Since the UN’s development goals and the EU’s strategy objectives have intermingled ecological, economical, and societal issues, “sustainable development” could be easily replaced by “suitable developments” by the stake holders, due to their vested or even conflicts of interests to generate profits for businesses, secure funding for NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) and environmentalists, or get elected or re-elected as politicians at the expense of the environment. Thus, the definition of sustainability should be an intrinsic property of a molecule, a material, a reaction, a process, or a technology. An alternative definition of sustainability was recently proposed, which is indeed independent of economic and social aspects: resources, including energy, should be used at a rate at which they can be replaced naturally, and the generation of wastes cannot be faster than the rate of their remediation. This definition is similar to the first two principles, or system conditions, of the four sustainability principles of Rober̀t et al. Chemist and chemical engineers have had the privilege to work on chemistry with very little, if any, limitations for a very long time and synthesized suitable chemicals by suitable reactions, which were the basis of suitable processes. In the glorious days of the 1950s and 1960s, chemistry was envisioned as the solution to a host of society’s needs, and it became a central science. Natural and synthetic chemicals, including materials and their production technologies, enabled mankind to achieve longevity and much better quality of life. While most of the emerging environmental and health problems caused by chemicals in the 1970s and 1980s have been addressed and fixed locally, several issues transformed to global phenomena (DDT and dioxin contamination, greenhouse gas emission, ozone depletion, ocean acidification, climate change, and microand nanoplastic pollution, just to name a few). One of the original responses to the escalating environment issues was the evolution of green chemistry, which started in the 1980s and has grown to be a guiding concept by the end of 1990s. The first responders defined green chemistry by shifting the focus from cleaning up the wastes to pollution prevention. The environmental and health impacts of hazardous chemicals, materials, and practices were addressed by the 12 principles of green chemistry, which did not change at all in the last 25 year, indicating their timeless nature. Since some parts of green chemistry may not be sustainable at all, a definition of sustainable chemistry should be established and applied for the assessment of each chemical or reaction or process. In general, sustainable chemistry should use resources, including energy, at a rate at which they can be replaced naturally, and the generation of waste cannot be faster than the rate of their remediation. It should be noted that not all sustainable chemicals or reactions or processes could be green. Therefore, the selection of chemicals, reactions, and processes, which are sustainable and green at the same time, should be preferred or the target of design and innovation. This thematic issue of Chemical Reviews is dedicated to Sustainable Chemistry with eight articles written by leading scientists and engineers from four continents. The topics cover some of the greatest challenges of sustainability including energy storage, carbon dioxide, and biomass conversion to chemicals, sustainable solvents and catalysts, and renewable and biodegradable polymers. The cover of this special issue shows a yin and yang (yin̅yańg or “dark−bright” or “negative−positive”), one of the dominant concepts of Chinese philosophy focusing on the process of harmonization to ensure a constant, dynamic balance of all things considered. Indeed, this should be the overarching goal of sustainable and green chemistry.
Highly CitedSustainable chemistry aims to use resources at a rate they can be naturally replaced and generate waste at a rate it can be remediated, addressing global environmental and health challenges.
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