Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews Green Chemistry: An Introductory Text by Mike Lancaster The Royal Society of Chemistry: Cambridge, 2002. xviii + 310 pp. 51 figures, 26 tables, 124 schemes. ISBN 0854046208 (paperback). $44.95 reviewed by Alan M. Rosan
Modern chemistry affects all facets of contemporary life since it is instrumental in the development, production, use, and disposal of the huge variety of goods that we all demand. Unfortunately, many consider the chemical industry’s approach to producing synthesized goods unsafe and undesirable and pursue this thinking to differentiate industrial operations from “natural” processes. The green approach, a commitment to reconcile the necessity of getting more and better products out of a reactor with the imperative of enhanced environmental sensitivity, was first articulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over a decade ago. Now recognized as a meaningful response to the urgency of providing for sustainability, green practices are increasingly being embraced worldwide. These concerns are the topic of this engaging, comprehensive, and compact text by Mike Lancaster, one of the continuing series of Royal Society paperback publications. Herein is provided a tightly packaged, cogently written, and highly informative introduction to the perspective, practice, requirements, initial successes, and problems of green chemistry. Written by an expert in process development and based on undergraduate modules and the Masters program in Clean Technologies at the University of York, it is designed (as the author states) to educate, not complicate. This important goal is ably fulfilled. The text, being authoritative, comprehensive, and balanced, sounds a timely advocacy for attending to both the market economics and the atom efficiency of a wide variety of chemical processes. The full range of green concerns are addressed in 10 chapters of from 9 to 45 pages, starting with an excellent opening description of the history, methodology, and philosophy underlying the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry. Each of the latter are critically amplified in the ensuing discussions. Employing many current, industrially significant examples, the author examines waste minimization, environmental performance, catalysis, solvents, renewable resources, emerging technologies, the design of greener processes, and industrial case studies. The concluding chapter posits an integrated approach to a greener chemical industry. Each chapter is accompanied by crisp drawings, figures, and a bibliography (3–10 citations) and closes with four openended and provocative review questions that invite student engagement and discussion. Also included is a nine-page index and a useful, but not exhaustive, list of 72 abbreviations. Chapter nine on industrial case studies is the only chapter to include citations (19) to the primary literature. While these are quite current (1988 to 2001) and include the patent lit-
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Jeffrey Kovac University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 37996-1600
erature, I found it unfortunate that more primary references were not included throughout. This text, suitable for courses in green chemistry, environmental technology, or as a special topics offering, is most appropriate for the junior or senior level because a considerable facility with mechanistic organic chemistry is assumed. While the book is possibly useful at the lower level, instructors would need to provide substantial background. The book begins with a discussion of atom-economic and atom-uneconomic reactions. The theme here is that despite worldwide attention to environmental issues, simple add-on solutions are invariably illusive. One lesson is that effective environmental oversight often requires process redesign, not simply “end-of-pipe” technologies. Consequently the ideal of melding universal high efficiency and low environmental risk may require a fundamental reevaluation of those traditionally taught and long-practiced workhorse reactions. For example, substitution and elimination processes, which receive considerable attention in organic chemistry courses, are intrinsically less green than additions and rearrangements, which are not very common industrial processes. There is much to learn and appreciate in this book, both anecdotal and profound. Particularly insightful are discussions on electrochemical processes, fuel cells, renewable resources, chemical engineering, the impact of various reactor designs, and the differences between bench-, pilot-, and plant-scale operations. The excellent chapter on renewables includes a telling critique of world oil consumption, which is currently proceeding unsustainably at twice the rate with which new reserves are being discovered, and explicitly addresses the need to develop suitable markets in which green products with improved cost/performance ratios can compete. Many will find chapter nine on industrial case studies the most interesting. Here Lancaster summarizes and critiques eight important processes ranging from production of vitamin C to eco-friendly pesticides. A balanced effort is made to highlight the pros and cons of differing synthetic approaches. The author points out that the dual imperatives of economic and environmental efficiency can often be met, though not necessarily in the same manner for all processes. The crucial importance of adequate mixing, residence time, and energy flow both into and out of a reactor are examined in some detail, as are market economics, management, and legislative issues. Politically charged issues like the Precautionary Principle are met head on. Finally, the author highlights the critical need for environmental protections to be integrated into policies and practice as was expressed in the 1992 Rio Summit’s Agenda 21.1 These are important subjects not often included in undergraduate chemistry curricula. Not surprisingly, this text has a marked European flavor with technical and regulatory issues taken largely from the European experience. Thus, there is no discussion of some topics more familiar to U.S. chemists (Material Safety Data Sheets, Good Manufacturing Practice). With compassion, Lancaster discusses some of the world’s most tragic environmental and human disasters, including those at Flixborough,
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 80 No. 10 October 2003 • Journal of Chemical Education
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Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews Bhopal, and Minimata Bay, highlighting exactly which green principles, if followed, might have ameliorated or prevented these tragedies. While an informative first edition in many ways, this text does suffer from the lack of concise editing, some lapses in spelling and grammar, mistakes in various figures, chemical formulas, reaction schemes, equations, and structures as well as a most unfortunate typographical oversight on the cover. Some of the reaction mechanisms are cursory. Hopefully these few deficiencies will be addressed in a second edition. The principal strengths of this book are its considerable breadth, timeliness, and the use of many relevant examples coupled with its strong advocacy of the importance of a shift in both the practice and teaching of chemistry. It includes much of use to the educator. The text emphasizes the interconnectedness and interdependence of reaction mechanism, reactor engineering, market development, regulatory pressure, and financial incentive, and teaches that different processes will exhibit differing levels of greenness. Green Chemistry: An Introductory Text also spotlights specific, unresolved challenges, including the need for a practical amination of benzene, direct oxidations utilizing dioxygen, efficient processes to convert biomass to syngas, and synthesis of speciesspecific, bioavailable, biodegradable, and benign pesticides.
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With the unrealistic and irreconcilable choice of either technical or environmental performance still dominating the consumer view, the need for green teaching, green thinking, and green practice is paramount. Replete with extensive and varied examples, detailed analyses, and critical comparisons, this text is an important contribution to the training of future chemists and chemical engineers who will need to work together to plan and conduct syntheses requiring atom economy, energy efficiency, waste minimization, safe reactor design and operation all linked by an overarching environmental ethic. If these laudable goals are ever attained it will be as a consequence of the insightful knowledge and forthright teachings of texts like this one. Note 1. Information about Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in 1992 in Rio de Janiero may be found at http://habitat.igc.org/agenda21/. (Accessed July 2003)
Alan M. Rosan is in the Department of Chemistry, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940;
[email protected] Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 80 No. 10 October 2003 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
