Green Chemistry for Sustainable Future

kedi (63)in #steemstem • 7 years ago

One of the most important problems of today's world is environmental pollution. One of the biggest causes of environmental pollution is the unpredictable chemicals thrown into the environment, the poisonous gases filtered from the factory chimneys, the solvents dissolved in the water and more...

The population of mankind is increasing day by day. Accordingly, requirement list also increases. Trying to provide unlimited production opportunities with scarce resources to meet these lists. In the production part of the business, the importance of chemicals is great in almost all of the industries. As a result, dead fishes, acid rains, dry soils, inhaled flue gases are inevitable.

Chemists and chemical engineers have begun to look for alternative solutions when the biggest responsibility of rapidly growing environmental pollution is shown as chemistry. Among these, "Green Chemistry" has become the most talked-about alternative solution in recent times.

What is Green Chemistry?

Green chemistry, also called sustainable chemistry, is an area of chemistry and chemical engineering focused on the designing of products and processes that minimize the use and generation of hazardous substances.*

It is aimed to reduce pollution by actions carried out within a certain order. Therefore, we can say that it is a long-term process for "Green Chemistry."

Definition by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); "Green chemistry is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the generation of hazardous substances."

P. T. Anastas and J. C. Warner in the book that Green Chemistry-Theory and Practice; they described as "The use of a dozen principles, which eliminates or reduces the use and emergence of hazardous materials for human and environmental health in the design, manufacture, and use of chemical products".

Well, Green Chemistry or non-hazardous chemistry is defined as the design of products and processes to prevent or reduce the formation of hazardous chemicals. For this reason, in the green chemistry approach, many efforts should be made, such as waste generation, reduction of energy and use of natural resources. There are 12 basic principles accepted by all academic circles and industry to quickly assess which of the two chemical processes are environmental "more acceptable" or "greener."

You can take a look at these principles here.

Just reducing waste and managing waste is not enough to be environment-friendly. For this reason, making only waste debates causes other dimensions of the subject to be ignored. Although green chemistry does not result in a short time regarding the application, we can say that it will win the fight for chemical pollution one day. For this reason, information should be given to people, and green chemistry classes should be given at universities, green chemistry applied projects should be supported and disseminated.

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