Future chemical technology development guide

This can achieve profit maximization and sustainable development while reducing material production costs and improving material properties.

Intrinsic properties of future chemical products

Future chemical products will be designed to reduce or even eliminate hazards while maintaining functional effectiveness.

Here, the definition of hazards is broad, including physical hazards (such as explosions and corrosion), global hazards (such as greenhouse gases and ozone depletion), and toxicological hazards (such as carcinogenesis and endocrine disruption).

Traditional ways of dealing with hazardous chemicals are often to prevent leaks, such as using protective equipment or exhaust gas purifiers; But when prevention and control mechanisms fail, the results can be catastrophic.

The idea of green chemistry is to shift the focus of risk reduction to harm reduction.

It is important to note that the hazard is an inherent property of the chemical and a result of design choices. Therefore, it is necessary to redesign chemical products and production processes after in-depth understanding of molecular mechanisms, so as to avoid physical and mental damage to human beings and damage to the environment.

An expanded definition of performance should therefore include the function of chemicals and their inherent properties, including their renewability, non-toxicity and degradability in the environment.

reproducibility

The transition from petrochemical to renewable chemistry must be carefully designed in an integrated system environment, taking into account possible negative impacts from factors such as land conversion, water use or competition with food production.

Crucially, the use of benign processes enables an important shift towards renewable feedstocks, including the shift from linear to circular processes.

Therefore, materials that are currently considered low value must be disposed of as renewable raw materials in the future. Examples of the use of low-value "waste" include the conversion of lignin from paper mill waste into feedstock for the production of vanillin, and the partial replacement of petroleum-based propylene oxide with direct use of carbon dioxide in polyurethane production, which would significantly reduce carbon emissions while improving other environmental parameters.

Chemists need to think more deeply about the problem of "waste design" : how to adjust the synthesis route to minimize the disposal of by-products, or make by-products usable as feedstock

nontoxicity

The design of non-toxic chemical products needs to be achieved through cooperation in chemistry, toxicology, genomics and other related fields. There is a need to understand and study the underlying molecular mechanisms, including how molecules are distributed, absorbed, metabolized, and excreted in the body, and how physico-chemical properties such as solubility, reactivity, and cellular permeability affect these processes.

Work is under way to predict and model toxicity. However, models rely on limited available toxicity data, which is currently being collected by a number of projects in the US and the EU.

degradability

The chemicals of the future must be designed to be non-persistent compounds that degrade easily and do not damage the environment.

For example, a pesticide with very low toxicity to mammals and rapid degradation can be chemically modified to improve its biodegradability; Some renewable sources of succinic acid based plasticizers can be used to synthesize non-toxic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) polymers that can be rapidly degraded.

Molecular characteristics and environmental mechanisms that lead to persistence need to be understood in order to build predictive models. Routine assessment of the potential persistence of synthetic compounds is critical for every (newly) designed compound that may eventually be distributed in the environment (such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products).

Paradoxically, stability may be a desirable property when considering the energy expenditure of the compound modification, the synthetic route, and the molecular complexity.

An important consideration is to evaluate whether this "investment" has value-added applications, rather than simply pursuing the design of a degradation pathway.

Highly complex molecules of renewable origin that are not natural compounds need to be re-integrated into the value chain by designing reuse or recycling routes; If the molecule is a natural compound, it is biodegradable regardless of its complexity.

Redesigning the chemical value chain with non-fossil raw materials

Today's chemical industry is almost entirely dependent on oil, natural gas and coal as a source of carbon. The petrochemical value chain that emerged in the second half of the 20th century formed a highly integrated network, sometimes referred to as the "oil tree."

In terms of embedded energy, embedded materials (including water), waste generation, and environmental and economic costs, the use of green conversion methods and processes reflects the advantages of the transition from fossil resources to renewable resources