Principles of Green Chemistry

Green Chemistry itself is defined as the use of chemistry for pollution prevention, through the environmentally conscious design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances. Twelve principles, enunciated by Paul Anastas, give practical shape to this definition and are taken up one at a time in the subsections that follow: preventing waste, maximising atom economy, choosing less hazardous synthesis routes, designing safer chemicals, using safer solvents and auxiliaries, designing for energy efficiency, using renewable feedstocks, reducing derivatives, using catalysis, designing for degradation, real-time pollution-prevention analysis, and designing inherently safer chemistry to prevent accidents. Applied together, wherever a given process allows, these twelve principles are what let a chemical indust …