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Welcome to CI2E Quarterly – Issue 1, March 2010!
ROW2 Technologies is pleased to bring to you the First 2010 Green Chemistry Special Issue. We assure our 5000 plus CI2E readers from Life Sciences and Chemical industries that CI2E will be even more informative, interactive and entertaining in 2010. With the industry getting increasingly cautious on greener synthesis and chemistries, we hereby present to you CI2E’s Green Chemistry Special Issue.
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ROW2 World: Updates on ROW2 and its offerings
- Article: Green Chemistry- Science & Politics of Change
- Interesting Links: Links to various interesting Green Chemistry” articles
- My Forum: Annemieke Timmers of UBM International Media gives a brief idea of their upcoming event, CPhI Japan
- Entertainment: Winners of the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards and more...
- Upcoming Events: Important Green Chemistry Events and other events in 2010
ROW2 World :
ROW2 News With more zeal and focused approach on adding value to our customers, ROW2 enters the New Year and assures its customers of the best services and offerings in the year ahead. We hope to have your continued trust and support throughout our journey in 2010.
- SmartChem updated with additional REACH High Concern Chemicals: ECHA has added 14 more chemicals to the list of REACH High Concern Chemicals in January 2010. SmartChem now alerts its users on these additional High Concern Chemicals. Read on to know more details.
- SmartChem enriched with REACH Restricted Chemicals: SmartChem has enhanced its newly introduced section, REACH Corner, with REACH Restricted Chemicals. Read on to know more about this enhancement.
- ROW2 marks its presence at InformexUSA 2010: Informex has always been a good networking event allowing us to explore new business opportunities and form alliances. This year too, ROW2 used this opportunity to connect with its customers, prospects and industry colleagues.
- Participation in Events: ROW2 will be present in Chemspec India to be held on April 15-16 in Mumbai and Chemspec Europe to be held on June 09-10 in Berlin, Germany.
- ROW2 in action whole year round: In addition to the enrichments in services, participation in various events, ROW2’s 2010 agenda also includes Webseminars, Event Alerts, Elite Club Program, SmartChem Orientation Program and various other contests and celebrations.
SmartChem News
Recent Enhancements:
- Alerts on additional REACH High Concern Chemicals – 14 additional REACH High Concern Chemicals have been announced by ECHA thus, increasing the total number of these chemicals from 16 to 30. SmartChem provides alerts on these additional chemicals and enables its users to act proactively towards consumption of these chemicals.
- List of REACH Restricted Chemicals – ECHA has imposed restrictions on the marketing and use of certain chemicals and has categorized them as Restricted Chemicals. REACH Corner in SmartChem now provides the list of these Restricted Substances and the respective restriction conditions.
To know more about these enhancements, please write to us here.
RouteDesign News
- Celebrating Century of RouteDesign projects: It’s a pleasure to announce that ROW2 has successfully delivered over 100 RouteDesign projects till date. Its process chemistry credentials include Long-term RouteDesign agreements with 4 of the Top Life Science Companies, repeat business rate of over 80%, more than 40% of the routes (which were proposed in RouteDesign projects) already patented by customers.
To get case studies on how we have helped companies resolve their process chemistry issues and designed novel routes for them, please write to us here.
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"There was an urgent sourcing inquiry for one of the APIs and we were looking at suppliers with DMF certification. SmartChem helped us to identify DMF holders of that API in just 1 click, thus saving our time and efforts, which we would have otherwise taken to extract details from other sources and to identify suitable suppliers."
-- Sourcing Manager, one of the top Pharmaceutical companies, USA
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"ROW2's RouteDesign report gave us novel synthetic routes suitable for commercial scale that we had not considered before, and therefore, added to our team's knowledge. We would definitely use this service again."
-- Head of Process Research, one of the leading Pharmaceutical companies, Germany
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"SmartChem has allowed me and my colleagues to target specific companies & identify new worldwide opportunities to grow our business. It has also helped increase the effectiveness of my prospecting visits. I would not hesitate to recommend the product to others involved in business development activities."
-- Business Development Manager, Leading Pharmaceutical Company, Germany
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"The three-molecule trial was a success. As a matter of fact, we are practicing some of the chemistry from two of the trial RouteDesigns in our laboratories today."
-- Head Science and Technology at a leading chemical company, USA
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"Details provided on REACH Pre-registered chemicals and High Concern chemicals in SmartChem offer great assistance to us. This information is useful especially while procuring new chemicals for R&D department as it helps us understand their REACH status and discuss with the suppliers accordingly."
-- R&D Sourcing Specialist, one of the top Pharmaceutical companies, Switzerland
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Green Chemistry: Science & Politics of Change
Author: Ravi Raghavan
While the role of the chemical industry in sustaining the global economy and underpinning future technologies is largely unquestioned, the industry has been under intense pressure over the last few decades to transform itself to face the challenges, amongst others, of globalisation. The industry is also being driven to develop and commercialise newer technologies that address safety, health and environmental concerns increasingly raised by the society and governments. This has led to technological and managerial challenges that the industry has, by and large, been successful in addressing.
While traditional approaches to lowering risk have hinged around controlling exposure by controlling ‘circumstantial’ factors such as the use, handling, treatment and disposal of chemicals, there is now a perceptible swing to shifting the control to more ‘intrinsic’ factors such as the design or selection of chemicals with reduced toxicity and of reaction pathways that eliminate by-products or ensure that they are benign. A much better understanding of the relationship between molecular structure and toxicity now allows scientists to design ‘safer’ chemicals, and there is growing realisation, in industry and academia, that radical new processes will be required for the full potential of environmental improvement to be realised.
In other words, the focus has shifted to minimising hazard, as opposed to mitigating risk, and slew of technologies – clubbed together as ‘Green Chemistry’. While the term was coined only about 15 years ago, efforts by the industry to clean up its act due regulation go far beyond. As far back as the 19th century, environmental regulation led to the clean-up of the LeBlanc soda ash process, and only more recently the Montreal Protocol ushered in new refrigerants and fire fighting chemicals.
‘Green Chemistry’ offers the industry an opportunity to move beyond the purview of many environmental regulations. It aims to introduce radical new technologies that will transform the nature of chemical use and manufacture. Transformations of this order are rare in the chemical industry, though not unprecedented [the Haber-Bosch process for synthetic ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen, for example, marginalised an earlier process using nitrate minerals].
Obviously, it is important to be able to quantitatively assess the environmental impact of a process, before labeling it ‘green’ and this calls for exhaustive life-cycle analysis that is seldom possible unless the process has been tried out on a commercial scale. In the absence of such a study, the ‘E-factor,’ which measures the amount of waste generated per unit of desired product, is reckoned a good barometer (in spite of its striking simplicity), and reveals that fine chemicals production offers greater opportunities for innovation, in contrast to bulk chemicals.
Broadly, green chemistry process research can be divided into three categories:
- Alternative feedstocks: Waste from one process as feedstock for another; switching from resource-depleting materials such as petroleum to those from renewable or biologically derived sources (e.g. carbon dioxide, bio-molecules such as sugars)
- Alternative Solvents: Use of environmentally friendly solvents (e.g. water – an approach that has been successfully adopted by the paints industry); use of alternate solvents (e.g. ionic liquids, super-critical fluids). A wide variety of chemical reactions from alkylation and polymerisation to biocatalysis and electroplating, have been accomplished in these solvents, although none have, as yet, been carried out in an industrial scale.
- Alternative synthetic pathways: Design of selective catalysts can reduce the number of stages of a chemical transformation, reduce environmental impact, and increase efficiency and selectivity of the desired chemical.
There are a number of barriers to implementation of green processes. These include taxation policies that focus on punishing polluters, rather than rewarding cleaner processes; and the little incentive to improve processes beyond the limits set by environmental regulations, which frequently prescribe which technology should be used. Perhaps the largest barrier is that proven green technologies are not as readily available as traditional ones, and existing technologies that pollute within prescribed regulatory limits may be easier to implement than new technologies that pollute much less.
For green technologies to deliver within the time frame that businesses are comfortable with, will need the concerted efforts of researchers in industry, government and academia to develop a slew of reliable methodologies, and a balanced funding from industry and government.
For the full potential of green chemistry to be realised, young academics need role models to inspire them and industry needs successful case studies to convince them.
About the author - Mr. Ravi Raghavan
Mr. Ravi Raghavan is the Editor of "Chemical Weekly", one of the most widely circulated and reputed chemical publications, and Director of the Chemical Weekly Database P. Ltd. He is involved in extensive reporting of activities in the chemical industry and hence has an in-depth understanding of the complexities of this industry.
He also heads the team of researchers that provide market assessment and entry-level strategies for companies looking to invest in the Indian chemical industry.
He has received his Bachelor of Science (Technology) from Bombay UDCT in India and his M.S. in Polymer Science from Drexel University in Philadelphia, USA.
Contacts: ravi@chemicalweekly.com - www.chemicalweekly.com
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For this Green Chemistry Special Issue, below are some interesting articles related to Green Chemistry:
Deploying Green Chemistry in API Synthesis
Published in PharmTech.com: Jul’09 issue
This informative article enlists 4 approaches, which have shown noteworthy developments in Green Chemistry. These approaches, if applied in synthesizing APIs or lead compounds, may improve environmental profile.
The Importance Of Green Chemistry
Published in Energy Boom: Jul’09 issue
This informative article depicts the optimism of one of the industry experts who believes that green chemistry looks to solve some of the largest problems on Earth including Global Warming.
Pharma goes green to cut costs
Published in RSC: Jul’08 issue
An interesting article describing how the pharmaceutical industry’s drive to curb spending led them to analyze the green chemistry credentials and finally its adoption.
No Real New Money for Drug Regulation
Published in PhamExec.com: Feb’10 issue
Hike but no hike from the White House! This is a good piece of information highlighting the facts that although USFDA has been fortunate to receive a budget boost for the fiscal year 2011, yet this would not be enough to keep up with the rising costs. This might result in a rise in the user fees.
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