Green solvents for catalysisWalter Leitner, Kenneth R. Seddon and Peter Wasserscheid introduce this special issue on a conference held from 13–16 October 2002 at Bruchsal in Germany

Over the last decade, green chemistry has been a topic of numerous conferences and workshops all over the world. These symposia have provided excellent opportunities for the scientific community to exchange ideas, to foster the concept, and to develop the field to its current fertile state. The large majority of these events have tried to demonstrate the full variety of possible approaches to sustainable chemistry, covering a wide range of disciplines and methodologies. The fast growing activities in the field of green chemistry encouraged us to organise a more specifically targeted conference, bringing together researchers for a focussed and in-depth discussion of an individual area in its full scientific detail. Under the auspices of DECHEMA, and with the constant support of Drs. Kurt Wagemann, Dana Schleyer and Barbara Feisst, a conference was devoted to Green Solvents for Catalysis from 13–16 October 2002, in Bruchsal, Germany.

The vast majority of chemical transformations occur in the solution phase, and the solvent is a strategic parameter in the implementation of such processes on a laboratory and industrial scale. On a molecular level, the solvent helps to bring reagents in direct contact and stabilises or destabilises intermediates and transition states. In process design, the use of solvents determines the choice of work-up procedures and recycling or disposal strategies. The interplay of molecular and process engineering is particularly important for reactions involving organometallic catalysts. Within the framework of green chemistry, innovative concepts for the substitution of volatile organic solvents in organometallic catalysis have become the focus of interdisciplinary research activities all over the world. Promising approaches include catalysis utilising aqueous biphasic systems, ionic liquids, supercritical media, fluorinated phases or thermoregulated systems.

The response to the announcement of Green Solvents for Catalysis far exceeded our expectations: the conference attracted over 220 scientists from 24 countries out of 4 continents. One third of the participants came from industry, demonstrating the high relevance of the topic for technical application. The share of students reached almost 25% and 14 young scientists were brought in with the aid of industrially sponsored travel grants. The scientific programme consisted of 30 oral presentations and 71 posters. To overcome classical borders, the programme was structured according to reaction types and chemical processes, which theme ran throughout the meeting. In many presentations, the potential of individual concepts to open new opportunities beyond solvent replacement became clearly visible. The present volume of Green Chemistry contains a selection of contributions from the Bruchsal Meeting. All the papers published here were subject to the normal RSC peer review system, and the topics discussed give a flavour of the broad variety of reactions and processes that were discussed at the symposium.

In addition to the scientific discussion, there was plenty of room for informal exchange of ideas and networking. One highlight was certainly the candlelight dinner in the beautiful baroque castle of Bruchsal. At this occasion, the local wines were discovered as another attractive solution phase by most participants.

The final day reflected the fruitful scientific discussion throughout the conference with overview lectures from industrialists, comparing and contrasting the various solvent systems. The conference closed with a panel discussion, collecting an extremely enthusiastic feedback from the audience. As a natural consequence, it was decided to hold a follow-up conference on Green Solvents for Synthesis at the same location from 3–6 October 2004.

LEFT to RIGHT – Walter Leitner (Lehrstuhl fur Chemie und Petrolchemie, RWTH, Aachen, Germany), Kenneth Seddon (Queen’s University Belfast Ionic Liquids Laboratory (QUILL)) and Peter Wasserscheid (Institut für Technische Chemie und Makromolekulare Chemie, RWTH Aachen, Germany.

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