Editor’s Page pubs.acs.org/Organometallics
Award Winning Green Organometallic Chemistry: The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge
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(3) http://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/pubs/pgcc/presgcc.html. (4) For those who cannot join this event personally, Professor Lipshutz recommends a widely available international favorite, the sparkling wine Veuve Clicquot Brut Yellow Label. As a special onetime offer, the Editor in Chief will personally reimburse the first reader who submits a sales receipt for one bottle of this wine (orgmet@ orgmet.acs.org), together with a picture of a group of organometallic chemists enjoying it (these may subsequently be uploaded onto a social media host site).
arlier this year, Organometallics began to publish reviews, accounts, or similar invited articles from organometallic chemists who have earned awards from chemical societies, agencies, or comparable bodies worldwide. The laudatio should mention accomplishments that have involved organometallic chemistry, and this issue leads off with the fifth feature article in the series.1 The principal author, Professor Bruce Lipshutz, has been named the winner of the 2011 Presidential Green Challenge, which was instituted in 1996 and features one academic recipient (and several industrial recipients) each year.2 The Challenge is sponsored by the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in partnership with the American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute and other members of the chemical community.3 It was established to recognize and promote innovative chemical technologies that prevent pollution and have broad applicability in industry. The Award was conferred in a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the White House, the ACS, and the EPA in Washington DC, on June 20, 2011. Highlights from the laudatio include “Chemical manufacturers use billions of pounds of organic solvents each year, much of which becomes waste. Water itself cannot replace organic solvents...as many chemicals do not dissolve...in water. Professor Lipshutz has designed a safe surfactant that forms tiny droplets in water. Organic chemicals dissolve in these droplets and react efficiently, allowing water to replace organic solvents.” As detailed in his article, Professor Lipshutz describes how to use micellar catalysis to effect palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of in situ derived, highly water sensitive organozinc halides in water at room temperature. Any reader who takes the time to peruse the previous award winners will find several other organometallic chemists and/or reactions that have been recognized. These provide important and perhaps underpublicized examples of the organometallic community “quietly” doing “chemistry that counts” and the utility of organometallic chemistry with respect to societal issues that extend far beyond the boundaries of the field. Biographical sketches of Professor Lipshutz and his coauthors Christophe Duplais and Arkady Krasovskiy can be found in the following article. Bruce, we congratulate you on the occasion of this richly deserved honor and propose a Santa Barbara county pinot noir for the toast.4 We look forward to you helping to mentor future generations of organometallic chemists into the rewarding interdisciplinary field of green chemistry. John A. Gladysz, Editor in Chief
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REFERENCES
(1) (a) Gladysz, J. A. Organometallics 2011, 30, 357. (b) Gladysz, J. A. Organometallics 2011, 30, 1747. (c) Gladysz, J. A. Organometallics 2011, 30, 4801. (d) Gladysz, J. A. Organometallics 2011, 30, 5303. (2) http://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/pubs/pgcc/past.html. © 2011 American Chemical Society
Published: November 21, 2011 6059
dx.doi.org/10.1021/om201014t | Organometallics 2011, 30, 6059−6059