Giacomo Ciamician

(1857–1922)

The birth of green chemistry is often thought to have been a response to the recent realisation of the damage caused to the environment by man-made materials and the processes used to produce them.

A hundred years ago, a great scientist Giacomo Ciamician, confronted the problem of finding “green” synthetic methods that could be carried out under conditions as mild as those found in nature. He had no doubt about the answer to this problem; it was solar light.

Angelo Albini and Maurizio Fagnoni describe the approach and discoveries of Ciamician and place them within the context of present day green chemistry in a Tutorial Review (http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/b309592d) in this issue.

Fig. 1 Giacomo Ciamician teaching in Bologna.

Fig. 2 Giacomo Ciamician on the roof of the Chemical Institute in Bologna among the flasks he is exposing to solar light

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