Celebrating the tenth year of the Green Chemistry journal

This year Green Chemistry enters its tenth year of publishing. Since the first issue there have been a number of changes to the Journal, which has been growing from strength to strength. It is with thanks to our authors, the dedication of our referees and the guidance and enthusiasm of the Editorial and Advisory Board members that Green Chemistry has grown to be a high impact journal. This was recently emphasized by the ISI^® 2006 impact factor of 4.192 for the Journal.

Looking back

Last year saw the start of the Green Chemistry sponsored lectures, which are designed to highlight green chemistry contributions at international conferences. The first of these was at the 90th Canadian Chemistry Conference in May and congratulations to Rick Danheiser who presented on “Organic Synthesis in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide and Related Environmentally Friendly Media”. The second was presented by Graham Hutchings at the 3rd International Conference on Green and Sustainable Chemistry in the Netherlands and was titled “Selective Oxidation Catalysis using Supported Gold and Palladium Nanoparticles”. A selection of papers from this meeting, including a contribution from Graham Hutchings, will be published in an issue of Green Chemistry early this year.

Looking forward

This year sees some changes to the Editorial Board, and we would like to sincerely thank departing board members Kyoko Nozaki and Roshan Jachuck for their contribution to the Journal during their time on the Editorial Board.

To mark the occasion of the tenth year of Green Chemistry we plan to publish a number of reviews representing the many areas of the subject green chemistry.

In this issue we are starting with the first review, a contribution from Professor Dr Arno Behr on the utilisation of renewable resources (A. Behr, J. Eilting, K. Irawadi, J. Leschinski and F. Lindner, Green Chem., 2008, 10, DOI: 10.1039/b710561d).

This review is timely, as the chemical and biochemical conversion of renewable resources will undoubtedly continue to grow rapidly as a theme for green chemistry. The review highlights catalytic conversions of glycerol, the by-product of biodiesel production, to yield a range of important chemicals and materials. It demonstrates the broad potential of glycerol as raw material and also emphasises the need for efficient catalysts and catalytic processes to arrive at truly green routes starting from this renewable feedstock. Thus, it exemplifies nicely the importance of integrated product streams and synthetic pathway design, two major challenges to be met for a sustainable shift of the raw material basis.

Throughout the year we are organising celebrations for the 10th anniversary of the Journal and details of these events will be announced on the Journal website in due course. We hope that many of you will be able to join us for the celebrations.

News from the RSC

Award-winning technology and enhanced HTML articles

Launched in February 2007, RSC Project Prospect has had an exceptional first year. Bringing science alive via enhanced HTML articles in RSC journals, the project delivers: hyperlinked compound information (including downloadable structures) in text; links to IUPAC Gold Book terms; ontology terms linked to definitions and related articles; plus RSS feeds that include structured subject and compound information, enabling at-a-glance identification of relevant articles. As the only publisher able to offer these enhancements, we were delighted to be awarded the 2007 ALPSP/Charlesworth Award for Publishing Innovation, where judges described RSC Prospect articles as “delightfully simple to use … benefits to authors and readers are immediately obvious.” Around 1400 articles have now been published with enhanced HTML—to see for yourself, look out for the RSC Prospect icon on our website. Further developments to the project will be announced in 2008. Many of you have already told us how impressed you are with the project—http://www.projectprospect.org has examples of enhanced articles, feedback from the scientific community, plus the latest news.

Following feedback from journal readers a number of changes have been introduced across all RSC Journals. The Green Chemistry homepage now contains the contents list for the current issue, delivering the content you want to see as soon as you arrive at the site. Graphical abstracts are included as standard, allowing you to browse content much more conveniently. A more prominent and easy-to-use search box also makes finding published research much more intuitive. Advance Articles will soon also be available in pdf format.

For authors, the RSC Journal templates have been revised and updated to assist submission in a format similar to the journal layout. The guidelines for the use of colour in RSC Journals will be relaxed during 2008, and the decision on the free use of colour will be based on whether the use of colour enhances the scientific understanding of the figure (the old policy required the colour to be essential).

Energy & Environmental Science

RSC Publishing will be launching a new journal in summer 2008. Energy & Environmental Science will cover all aspects of the chemical sciences relating to energy conversion and storage and environmental science. Subscribers to Green Chemistry will have free online access to Energy & Environmental Science from launch. Visit the website for the latest news: www.rsc.org/ees.

‘Green Chemistry book of choice’ scheme

Launched in Spring 2007, the RSC eBook Collection offers scientists across the globe online access to a prestigious and wide ranging portfolio of chemical science books which span 40 years of research and opinion.

The RSC eBook Collection is testament to RSC's publishing innovation as well as the high quality of the content contained in our books. With further technical developments and new 2008 content being uploaded throughout the year, the RSC eBook Collection is set to become a key resource. To search the Collection or for further information visit www.rsc.org/ebooks.

Scientists from all four corners of the globe are taking advantage of the free first chapter downloads and from January 2008, Green Chemistry will regularly highlight a book specifically for our readers through our ‘Green Chemistry book of choice’ scheme. More information is available on the Green Chemistry website.

If you would like to buy a print copy of the ‘Green Chemistry book of choice’ or other titles from the RSC, and you are an RSC author, editor or referee you can enjoy a special 25% discount on your book purchase. You can redeem this offer online through the RSC Online Shop. To find out how to claim your exclusive discount, visit www.rsc.org/shop.

And finally…

We hope to have the opportunity to meet many of you during 2008. If you have any comments about the Journal please contact us at the following address: green@rsc.org.

Martyn Poliakoff, Chair of the Editorial Board

Walter Leitner, Scientific Editor

Sarah Ruthven, RSC Editor

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