How eco- friendly innovations reduce chemical footprints

Green chemistry is expanding its wings not only in academic laboratories but also to industrial units. Most sustainable practices include replacing volatile organic solvents that comprise a bulk of a reaction material, developing recyclable catalysts, focussing on development of energy efficient synthesis and encouraging the use of renewable starting material. By following the principles of green chemistry, turnover of many companies have increased substantially leading to both environmental and economic benefits.

Eco-friendly innovations: Making a difference

Industries all across has become aware about climate change and its importance in terms of helping combat the same. Green chemistry has been around for some time now and innovations within its eco-friendly space have been instrumental in reducing chemical or carbon footprints. They have been instrumental in providing the framework for chemical engineers and industrialists to support the initiative of global sustainability.

Some of the best ways in which eco-friendly innovations help reduce chemical footprints include the following:

They help save energy

The first and the most significant benefit of eco-friendly innovations is that they help save energy considerably. From household products that are used in work, energy saving is their major task. They also turn out to be a great alternative to fossil fuels, which are non-renewable resources that can never be replaced once it gets depleted. They also refrain from emitting pollution into our air, causing harmful air quality over time.

They help improve paint performance while cutting costs

Green chemistry has reduced the carbon footprint for paint production. Let's observe this example. Titanium dioxide is an important addition to paint that acts as a base pigment in paint that is instrumental in covering the original colour beneath the new coat of paint. Through research to find greener chemical reactions, certain organisations developed a polymer that improved the functioning of titanium dioxide by coating it and ensuring that it gets dispersed more evenly and thoroughly. As a result, carbon footprints or chemical footprints was reduced by almost 22 percent. It was proved that the process also consumed 30 percent less water.

Reducing the number of steps and thereby saving cost and hazardous by products

Several pharmaceutical manufacturing processes use harmful metal catalysts and it results in unwanted by-products harmful for the environment as well as effluent treatment challenges. Now many such reactions have adopted enzymes as natural catalysts and are able to reduce the number of steps as well as remove the by-products and environmental burden.

Addressing the plastic problem

Plastic takes anywhere between 500 to 1000 years to degrade and every year additional tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean. Hence, the end game cannot be far. The modern day polyethelene is difficult to degrade because of its highly stable molecular structure. However, fortunately scientists in Japan have discovered a microbe that can help break down polythelene even faster.

The final words

On a final note, it can be said that going forward, green chemistry will become a significant foundation for circular economy, since a no-waste use of natural resources happens to be its all-embracing goal. While for a non-science person green chemistry may come across as a technical concept, but it has been providing benefits in our everyday life such as detergents containing enzymes, application in textiles bleaching agents which also turn out to be highly rewarding, for those who are looking forward and of course willing to invest in it. (The author is the CEO, Quantumzyme)