Page 70 - Visions of the Future Chemistry and Life Science

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Chemistry on the inside: green chemistry in
mesoporous materials

Duncan J. Macquarrie

Department of Chemistry, University of York, Heslington,
York YO10 5DD, UK

4.1 Green chemistry

The chemical industry today is one of the most important manufacturing
industries in the world. The ability of chemists to produce a wide range of
different molecules, both simple and staggeringly complex, is very well
developed, and nowadays almost anything can be prepared, albeit maybe
only on a small scale. On an industrial scale, a great variety of products are
synthesised, using chemistry which varies from simple to complex. These
products go into almost all the consumer goods we take for granted –
colours and fibres for clothes, sports equipment, polymers which go into
plastics for e.g. computer and television casings, furnishings, and photo-
graphic materials, cleaner fuels, soaps, shampoos, perfumes, and, very
importantly, pharmaceuticals. Unfortunately, many of these processes
generate a great deal of waste – often more waste is produced than product.
One of the major challenges for chemistry in the opening years of the
new millennium is therefore the development of new methods for the
clean production of these chemicals. Traditional, so-called end-of-pipe
solutions – i.e. treating the waste generated from reactions to render it less
harmful – are of limited value in the long term. In the last few years a new,
intrinsically more powerful approach has been pioneered. Green chemis-
try, as it has been called, involves the redesign of chemistry, such that the
desired products from a reaction are obtained without generating waste.
This massive undertaking involves a wide range of approaches, from the

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