Themed collection Green Chemistry 25th Anniversary Collection

The Green Chemistry Commitment (GCC) was founded in 2013 to host a community of practice around green chemistry in higher education. 10 years later, the GCC empowers a worldwide community to use chemistry tools to create a sustainable planet.

Some of the latest technological developments involving chemistry in water are discussed.

Environmental benefit will be greatest if we green the step causing the most harm.

An overview on lignin modification and applications possibilities is provided. Importantly, a quantitative comparison of all discussed literature procedures in terms of sustainability is included.

Overcoming solubility challenges in polypropylene (pp) coatings: a scalable, environmentally friendly approach utilizing partial oxidation and recycled materials.

Herein, we present electrochemical depolymerisation as a promising new technique for chemical recycling of polylactic acid.

A Pt–Fe bimetallic catalyst is developed to produce 1,2-pentanediol from furfural under mild conditions of 140  °C and 0.1 MPa H₂, affording by far the highest production rate.

Counter-current chromatography is an effective unit operation for simultaneous aromatic monomer–monomer and monomer–oligomer separations from oil derived from reductive catalytic fractionation of lignocellulosic biomass.

Precursors of ammonium salt biosurfactants have been obtained from HMF by coupling cobalt-catalyzed reductive amination with selective bio-esterification using an immobilized lipase CALB. The process has been optimized in batch and flow reactors.

Reaction and substrate scopes may be considerably broadened in the context of the chemical valorisation of biomass, using stable solid acid catalysts consisting of nanostructured silica–niobia which outperformed pure niobia and other catalysts.

A multi-decagram scale synthesis of enantioenriched N,S-ketals was achieved by using a robust heterogeneous organocatalyst. A new reactor design was crucial to enable the scaling up of this reaction while the overall catalyst loading below 0.1%.

The first series of Silverton {UMo₁₂O₄₀}-based polyoxomolybdates linked by Fe^II, Co^II, and Ni^II were synthesized and characterized. They exhibited excellent stabilities and were used as heterogeneous catalysts for the synthesis of quinazolinones.

Sustainable development of pharmaceuticals relies on the selection and integration of unified metrics and indicators. Herein, we present a standardized method to assess, report, and communicate environmental sustainability of development processes.

This work reports the analysis of 59 commercially available polymers from 20 different polymer classes for thermal properties, macrostructure, molecular mass distribution, and inorganic and organic additives, highlighting the need to characterize research polymers prior to recycling studies.

A solid-phase method favors the formation of Shiff-bases from chitosan and aldehydes and subsequent reduction. This provides access to alkylated chitosans with high degrees of functionalization with low process mass intensity.

A novel and efficient method has been developed for the modification of amino acids using a dimethyl carbonate (DMC) in an acidic system.

We demonstrate a novel route for the upcycling of poly(phenylene oxide) (PPO) into dimethylanilines using a bimetallic Pd₇Ru₃/CNT catalyst. This represents the first successful transformation of PPO into nitrogen-containing compounds.

The structure of humins, a major side-product of carbohydrate biorefining, is complex and to a large extent unknown. A multitechnique characterization of an industrial humin provides new structural insights.

A surprisingly simple approach to increasing the mechanical properties of lignin-based carbon fiber by leveraging a newly discovered thermo-mechanochemistry of lignin.

Pyrethrins are effective agents against mosquito larvae, but their rapid degradation rate in water reduces their deinsectization efficiency and increases the cost of deinsectization.

Biomass-derived solvents have been proposed as a novel pathway in biorefining for the realization of biofuels and bioproducts derived from lignocellulosic biomass.

The stabilized amorphous Al₂O₃ phase stabilizes the Cu⁺ site through oxidation state control, thereby improving the selectivity and activity for the production of the C₂₊ product.

Reductive amination of carboxylic acids under mild conditions was achieved using an Al₂O₃-supported Pt–Mo catalyst. Various carboxylic acids including biomass-derived fatty acids were successfully converted to their corresponding alkylamines.

Operationally simple photo-nickel C(sp²)–S cross-coupling with a reusable heterogeneous photocatalyst.

Cobalt molybdate (CoMoO₄) was synthesized by a simple and environmentally friendly evaporation method and it exhibited excellent catalytic performance for the selective hydrodeoxygenation of lignocellulosic ketones to their corresponding olefins.

Supported PdSn catalysts are highly effective for the direct synthesis of hydrogen peroxide showing significantly higher selectivity to comparable PdAu catalysts.

A new, green esterification and thioesterification method has been developed based on the intermediacy of in situ-generated 2-thiopyridine esters derived from dipyridyldithiocarbamate (DPDTC).

Carbon-to-carbon (C–C) cross-coupling reaction (CCR) protocols represent a major breakthrough in synthetic chemistry.