Herein, we report on the translation of a small scale ball-milled amidation protocol into a large scale continuous reactive extrusion process. Critical components to the successful translation were: a) understanding how the different operating parameters of a twin-screw extruder should be harnessed to control prolonged continuous operation, and b) consideration of the physical form of the input materials. The amidation reaction is applied to 36 amides spanning a variety of physical form combinations (liquid-liquid, solid–liquid and solid-solid). Following this learning process, we have developed an understanding for the translation of each physical form combination and demonstrated a 7-hour reactive extrusion process for the synthesis of an amide on 500 gram scale (1.3 mols of product).

The rapid growth of biologics as the preferred modality in several therapeutic areas has led to changes in the environmental profile of pharmaceutical manufacturing for some companies. The increased use of single use technologies (SUT) in biologics manufacturing has been accompanied by a greater public awareness of plastics waste, but the full life cycle environmental impacts of SUT have had limited study. Therefore, a segment of American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute Pharmaceutical Roundtable member companies undertook a streamlined cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment on a biological bulk drug substance (BDS) manufacturing process utilizing SUT at the 2000 L scale. The goal of this study was to highlight where pharmaceutical companies, and biologics producers in particular, can reduce the environmental impact of their drug substance manufacturing. The results have shown that the largest contribution to the life cycle environmental impact for SUT was found to be the electricity used to operate the plant. Interestingly, across all impact categories, the contribution to the environmental footprint from end-of-life due to the use of plastic SUT was extremely small. Although not quantified in this study, these findings and others suggest operational changes that increase process efficiency and decrease time in plant are among the best strategies for reducing the life cycle environmental impact of biologics manufacturing.

Although the concepts underpinning green chemistry have evolved over the past 30 years, the practice of green chemistry must move beyond the environmental and human health-related roots of green chemistry towards a more systems-based, life cycle-informed, and interdisciplinary practice of chemistry. To make a transition from green to sustainable chemistry, one must learn to think at a systems level; otherwise green chemistry-inspired solutions are unlikely to be sustainable. This perspective provides a brief description of why the current situation needs to change and is followed by how life cycle thinking helps chemists avoid significant systems-level impacts. The transition from batch to continuous flow processing and novel approaches to isolation and purification provide a case for interdisciplinary collaboration. Finally, an example of end-of-useful-life considerations makes the case that systems and life cycle thinking from an interdisciplinary perspective needs to inform the design of new chemical entities and their associated processes.

Although principles and practices of green and sustainable chemistry have been articulated for more than 20 years, they have yet to become systemically infused into the undergraduate chemistry curriculum. The American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute (ACS GCI) has convened stakeholders from across the chemistry education community to develop a strategy and, subsequently, a road map for mainstreaming green and sustainable chemistry concepts and practices into the chemistry curriculum. Through this initiative, a set of core competencies were developed to guide infusion of green and sustainable chemistry knowledge and skills into the curriculum and prepare chemists to make significant contributions to sustainability in the future. The core competencies are described briefly here as well as strategic efforts to develop the road map and to aid the adoption of green and sustainable chemistry into the undergraduate chemistry curriculum.

The pursuit of greener, more sustainable chemistry has increased over the past 20 years, and there are now multiple journals, books, conferences, and workshops produced every year. With all this activity, it is important to step back and assess the extent to which green and sustainable chemistry research is being translated to commercial applications. There have been several studies of the patent literature in the past that have addressed the question of if green chemistry is affecting government policy and which areas of innovation are being advanced from a green and sustainable chemistry perspective. None of these studies have addressed the details of the chemistry or the areas of societal concern that have prompted green and sustainable chemistry research in academia. This study has attempted to answer the question of if green and sustainable chemistry is being translated into patentable innovations, in which areas, and to what extent.

Formulated products used in hydraulic fracturing are designed to address specific subsurface challenges during oil and gas well completion and are intended for the treatment of a myriad of issues i...

The American Chemical Society (ACS), Division of Chemical Education, Examinations Institute, has been developing content maps to describe comprehensively the undergraduate curriculum aligned to traditional subdisciplines. These content maps have been developed through the combined efforts of many faculty members who teach the targeted courses in the subdiscipline. A recent collaboration between the Examinations Institute and the ACS Green Chemistry Institute has resulted in the consideration of green chemistry content in the context of the content maps. The inclusion of green chemistry concepts in the context of organic chemistry has been the initial focus of the work of this collaboration. Through working with faculty who teach green chemistry courses or organic chemistry courses with the theme of green chemistry, the organic chemistry content map has been revised and reconceptualized with the theme of green chemistry included. The process, excerpts of the content map, and alignments of traditional organic chemistry exam items to both the organic chemistry content map and the organic chemistry content map with the inclusion of green chemistry are reported.

Formulated products used in hydraulic fracturing are designed to address specific subsurface challenges during oil and gas well completion and are intended for the treatment of a myriad of issues in a wellbore; however, there are public concerns regarding the use of certain chemical ingredients in hydraulic fracturing. Public perception of hydraulic fracturing and concerns regarding water and chemical usage provide the industry with a unique opportunity to review current chemistries and water management practices with the aim being to identify more environmentally acceptable alternatives or replacements. Herein, we describe what the industry considers to be the greatest challenges, what is currently being done, and potential opportunities to provide alternatives that lead to a more sustainable industry.

The International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) launched a global project in 2017 to infuse systems thinking into chemistry education, motivated in part by the desire to help equip chemists and citizens to better address the complex, global challenges our society currently faces. One important early outcome of the IUPAC Systems Thinking in Chemistry Education (STICE) project is this special issue of the Journal of Chemical Education, which provides a key reference point for the rapidly emerging literature on the incorporation of systems thinking into chemistry education, including its application to green and sustainable chemistry. The STICE project outcomes to date include reviewing systems thinking approaches in other STEM fields, articulating a framework for STICE, identifying aspects of learning theories relevant to learning systems thinking skills in chemistry, using systems thinking approaches to integrate green and sustainability chemistry concepts into university-level chemistry classrooms, and identifying considerations for assessing systems thinking in chemistry education. The authors of this article, who, with others, have provided leadership to the STICE project, conclude this Journal's special issue by briefly reviewing progress to date and identifying three main areas of future work for the application of systems thinking in chemistry education: (1) developing systems thinking resources for chemistry educators and students, (2) identifying chemistry education research needed to investigate and improve systems thinking approaches, and (3) investigating opportunities to apply chemistry-related systems thinking approaches in broader educational contexts. Our intention is to recommend potential opportunities, stimulate conversations, and motivate actions required to successfully equip learners with systems thinking skills in chemistry, such that these learners, citizens of our countries and our planet, are better positioned to interpret and address complex global challenges.

To remain relevant, chemists need to be able to understand their work in terms of systems. Since systems thinking is a framework to understand and manage systems, the introduction of systems thinking in chemistry education would assist learners to navigate complex, inter-related concepts typical of systems. At the same time, the adoption of systems thinking in chemistry education will require a major reorientation in how chemistry is taught. We consider several characteristics of system complexity that are key to systems thinking in chemistry-including purpose, scale, boundaries, hierarchies, constraints, loop concepts and emergence-and discuss their introduction in education and the benefits this will bring.

Following our goal to devise a unified green chemistry metric that inspires innovation in sustainable drug manufacturing across the pharmaceutical industry, we herein disclose joint efforts by IQ, the ACS GCI PR and academia, leading to the significantly improved 'innovation Green Aspiration Level' (iGAL) methodology. Backed by the statistical analysis of 64 drug manufacturing processes encompassing 703 steps across 12 companies, we find that iGAL affords an excellent proxy for molecular complexity and presents a valuable molecular weight-based 'fixed' goal. iGAL thereby accurately captures the impact of green process inventiveness and improvements, making it a useful innovation-driven green metric. We conclude by introducing the comprehensive, yet easy-to-use and readily adaptable Green Chemistry Innovation Scorecard web calculator, whose graphical output clearly and effectively illustrates the impact of innovation on waste reduction during drug manufacture.

The sections in this article are New Areas of Sustainable and Green Chemistry Metrics Research

There is now over a 20-year history of green and sustainable chemistry efforts in the US, but for a majority of chemicals that have been synthesized, chemists and chemical engineers lack key information about what it takes to commercialize them, their toxicity to humans or the environment, their degradability (biological or otherwise), their ability to be recycled or reused, or their ability to be source renewably. While the depth, breadth, and variety of innovations in chemistry gives one hope that chemists and chemical engineers will make many significant advances in the next 20 years, there is still a need to incorporate systems and life cycle thinking into chemistry. This is especially true as one considers limitations in the supply of key elements chemists rely on very heavily. Recent advances in computational chemistry and machine learning show great promise for moving chemistry toward a more sustainable practice of chemistry.

Simo Sarkanen opened the discussion of the introductory lecture by Bruce Dale: The supposition that the strength of a national economy is directly related to energy consumption is incomplete. This hypothesis is reminiscent of Marx's suggestion that the value of an article is equivalent to the l