- "Students are given the opportunity to assess chemical products and processes and design greener alternatives when appropriate."
- "Students understand and can evaluate the environmental, social, and health impacts of a chemical product over the life cycle of the product, from synthesis to disposal."
At the highest level of the ACS guidelines, students are expected to have a deeper understanding of and critical thinking skills around developing and designing greener chemical products and processes. This can include the various environmental, social and health aspects of a chemical product, in particular as it pertains to life cycle analysis.
GCTLC Library
Below are resources from the GCTLC library that are tagged with any of the following Green Chemistry Principles:
- #3 (Less Hazardous Chemical Syntheses)
- #4 (Design Safer Chemicals)
- #5 (Safer Solvents and Auxiliaries)
OR have been tagged with keyword "Life Cycle Assessment".
The variety of resources below should provide educators with numerous options to help tailor their lectures and courses with more green and sustainable chemistry content. However, if you have additional suggestions for resources, you can always submit them for inclusion in the GCTLC library, or you can post them in the forum "Green Chemistry Resources for Addressing the ACS Guidelines" on the GCTLC.
Intellectual Ecology by Dr. John Warner
Dr. John Warner speaks at a Bioneers conference in 2014 on "Intellectual Ecology". This is a great inspirational introductory video for understanding Green Chemistry.
Iron (Fe) in Vitamins
This is an improvement over a similar lab published in Harris’ Analytical Chemistry text. Instead of using organics to form reddish solutions, the catechins or polyphenolic compounds in green tea form colored complexes with iron. UV-Vis spectroscopy in conjunction with Beer’s law can then be used to determine the concentration of Fe in vitamin tablets.
Other authors: Davis Winn (Georgia Gwinnett ...
Mannich Reactions in Room Temperature Ionic Liquids (RTILs): An Advanced Undergraduate Project of Green Chemistry and Structural Elucidation
Many people would argue that one of the ultimate goals of green chemistry should be to solely use water as a solvent if a solvent is needed at all. For reactions where water is not an option, a choice must be made from a wide variety of organic solvents. Recently room temperature ionic liquids (RTIL) have been receiving a lot of attention because of their chemical and thermal stability, low vapor ...
Micelle-Mediated Extraction of Heavy Metals from Environmental Samples: An Environmental Green Chemistry Laboratory Experiment
Analysis of trace metals and organic substances often relies on the use of
organic solvent-based extractions. In this laboratory exercise, students
will use analytical chemistry to determine heavy metals from water samples using a greener, micelle-mediated extraction procedure called cloud-point extraction. Water samples are treated with a chelating agent, ammonium pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate ...
Microwave-Assisted Heterocyclic Chemistry for Undergraduate Organic Laboratory
Heterocyclic compounds have a wide range of applications and properties. They are often antimicrobial agents, can inhibit specific enzymes, and are generally useful in organic synthesis. This experiment provides instructors with a variety of heterocyclic compounds that can be synthesized quickly with the aid of microwaves. While not a lot of Microwave-Assisted Organic Synthesis (MAOS) is taught at ...
Microwave-Assisted Organic Synthesis in the Organic Teaching Lab: A Simple, Greener Wittig Reaction
Microwave-assisted organic synthesis is becoming a more common laboratory practice. The advantages of using microwave-assisted synthesis include shortened reaction time, lower energy costs, and cleaner reactions. This particular experiment explores a much greener Wittig reaction that doesn't require an inert atmosphere, a strong base (i.e., butyl lithium), or even a solvent. In addition to these ...
News from Online: Renewable Resources
Sustainability is an undeniably important issue that any educator who teaches green chemistry must at some point address. This collection of web resources is not only a great reference to aid in curriculum preparation, but it also briefly discusses some of the challenges that the world faces in light of limited resources and a growing population.
The review includes a short summary of green ...
Novel Interdisciplinary Systems-Based Approach to Teaching Sustainability in Plastics
This is an article published in J Chem Ed about a novel way to teach systems thinking in a non-majors chemistry course called "Perspectives on Plastic".
Authors: Marta Guron and Alexis Slentz
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c00192
Octanol–Water Partition Coefficient Measurement by a Simple 1H NMR Method
This article describes a simple approach for measuring the octanol-water partition coefficient (Kow) of organic compounds using a simple miniature variation of the shake-flask method in an NMR tube, which can be quickly analyzed using a benchtop 1H NMR spectrometer. The article also details the scope and limitations of the method. Kow is an important metric for understanding bioaccumulation and ...
One-Pot Synthesis of 7-Hydroxy-3-carboxycoumarin in Water
Coumarins represent an important class of natural and synthetic derivatives with interesting biological activities. The 3-carboxycoumarins have been intensely studied because new functionalities can be easily added via the carboxyl group. During this laboratory exercise, students prepare 7-hydroxy-3-carboxycoumarin using a one-pot, multi-step procedure in the absence of organic solvents. By using ...