Green chemistry at ACHEMA 2009—from mnemonics to success stories

In 2008, an article in this journal summarized the 24 principles of green engineering and green chemistry in the mnemonic “IMPROVEMENTS PRODUCTIVELY” (S. Y. Tang, R. A. Bourne, R. L. Smith and M. Poliakoff, Green Chem., 10, 268, DOI: 10.1039/b719469m). Among the principles mentioned were, for example, Efficient use of mass, energy, space and time, Easy to separate by design, Catalytic reagents and In-process monitoring.

ACHEMA 2009, the International Exhibition Congress on Chemical Engineering, Environmental Protection and Biotechnology, will open its doors on May 11 in Frankfurt. A key feature of the concept of this market place for innovation in chemical technologies will once again be the very close interaction between the exhibition and the congress. Congress sessions are exclusively devoted to technologies which are either already on display at the exhibition booths or on the verge of being displayed there in the very near future. In the 2009 edition of ACHEMA, a large number of contributions related to green chemistry have made this difficult step into the program sessions—and, among them, the visitor will recognize many of the topics included in the mnemonic:

•Advanced Fluids in Process Engineering. The program consists of 9 sessions with 47 contributions overall. It will be opened by Martyn Poliakoff who will report on “Multiphase Catalysis in Supercritical Fluids”. Many contributions are related to advanced fluids including their application in bio-reactions. Ionic liquids are a central point that also embraces topics like the production of nanosystems in the session on Nanotechnologies/Nanomaterials. The risk assessment of ionic liquids will be addressed as well.

• The session Processes for the Production of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients also includes new reaction technologies, e.g. catalysts for continuous production.

•Microchemical Engineering is a process technology for easier and safer operation of chemical reactions, for example highly exothermic or photochemical reactions. There is a close interaction between concepts of Process Intensification and the concepts of green technologies. Reactions and Processes with Non-Classical Energy Input is another example.

•High-throughput Technologies have developed into a powerful tool for the design of new materials, including catalysts.

•Formulation Technologies have not been addressed very intensively in discussions about green technologies up to now, but this topic is expected to be of increasing importance, environmentally friendly surfactants being just one example.

Innovation cycles are becoming shorter—this will hold true in the future despite the present economic crisis. In fact innovation may be the key factor for success in the market right now, but it will prove even more to be a prerequisite for finding our way out of the crisis. Innovation does not just consist of a brilliant idea—it comprises the whole process from the first idea to market entry. This process must be actively managed. For green technologies this may be even more important, as in some cases at least in the past they have not been mainstream. For such new concepts that compete with established mainstream technologies, active management means attracting the awareness of funding institutions, but what may be even more important is creating targeted discussion forums. The congress series Green Solvents, the Congress on Ionic Liquids (COIL) and IMRET (International Conference on Microreaction Technology) are successful examples of how DECHEMA established such platforms for a discussion about implementation.

It is the merit of this journal and especially of the article IMPROVEMENTS PRODUCTIVELY to describe the principles of Green Engineering and Green Chemistry very clearly for everybody. It might seem presumptuous to add a 25th principle, but there is an important aspect which is implicitly related to some of the chemical engineering principles, but not explicitly mentioned: the potential of a new chemical process to be scaled-up—either conventionally in large-scale reactors or by numbering up microreactors. Whatever scale-up approach may be the best, it will be a point of discussion at ACHEMA—just like all aspects related to apparatus and technology in green engineering and green chemistry.

We very much hope to welcome many green chemists and technologists to Frankfurt.

Kurt Wagemann

DECHEMA e.V.

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