Green Chemistry and Green Engineering: A Framework for Sustainable Technology Development

Abstract

Green chemistry and engineering seek to maximize efficiency and minimize health and environmental hazards throughout the chemical production process. This review demonstrates how green chemistry principles and metrics can influence the entire life cycle of a chemical from design through disposal. After reviewing essential metrics and recent advances in the field within this context, we consider the case of nanotechnology. As an emerging field, nanotechnology provides an instructive framework to consider the influence and application of green chemistry. Interdisciplinary innovation guides both fields, and both seek to transform the nature of technology. The applications and implications of emerging green technology are discussed, and future opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations are highlighted.

Carbon Dioxide Solubilities in Decanoic Acid-Based Hydrophobic Deep Eutectic Solvents

“…Both reach for safety, maximum efficiency, and minimum health and environmental impact at all stages of a chemical’s life cycle. 14 …”

Green Toxicology: a strategy for sustainable chemical and material development

“…In silico tools like the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (U.S. EPA’s) ToxCast™ [22], part of the Toxicology in the twenty first century (Tox21), is a publicly available high-throughput toxicity dataset of thousands of chemicals that should be better utilized for data mining to advance Green Toxicology efforts in product development. Pertinent data from such in silico tools can provide crucial insight early on in the design process based on access to hundreds of measured and modelled assays used to screen chemicals, concentration–response curves, animal toxicity studies, and endocrine disrupting screening programmes that can advance Green Toxicology efforts [22, 23]. …”

Balancing Function and Environment toward Sustainable Design: A Building Insulation Case Study

“…The principles of green engineering have been applied to many industries. Among them, the textile industry (Allwood, 2008), industrial parks (Lei et al, 2012), the aerospace sector (Zimmerman, 2005), as well as green chemistry and engineering (Mulvihill, et al, 2011).These twelve principles guided the development of the decision-making framework to evaluate an alternative building insulation in this work. The sustainable design process and the product developed through its application work concurrently with functionality and sustainability evaluation methodologies to cultivate a continuous loop of design, implementation, assessment and improvement.…”