Green Chemistry

The need of ecological civilization gives a thorough exploration of resources and ecological environment in the world. The author makes an active attempt to seek available ways to keep the sustainable development of green economy, resources, environment, and green chemistry to change the pattern of rising and sustainable development of the economy. To develop the green industry means industrial ecologicalization. To depend on the law and economic means to strengthen  national consciousness of environmental protection.

One of the key steps to the realization of the aims of Green Chemistry lies in the sound management of chemicals that call for the implementation of global product strategy, which itself in turn constituents a significant part of the content of the Responsible Care Program, a voluntary commitment of the global chemical industry to continuously improve health, safety, and environmental management as well as production and manufacturing processes. REACH Regulation and GHS Classification and Labeling are two important legislations involved in the process of chemical management. REACH takes its letters from Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation of Chemicals and is an EU legislative initiative oriented to control the production, usage, and placing of the chemicals, including those in mixtures and in goods, on the EU market, whereas the GHS is launched by the UN in order to raise awareness of the risks of chemicals and to ensure the safe production, transportation, and disposal of these substances.

The implementation of green chemistry principles and green technology makes the process of organic synthesis safer. From the green chemistry point of view, E-factor, atom efficiency, or atom economy are generally accepted new criteria to measure the effectiveness of the organic chemical reactions. Green chemistry also enjoys the advantage of catalytic reactions. Catalysts can be of several types including homogeneous catalysts, heterogeneous catalysts, biocatalysts, and as well as phase-transfer catalysts. Chemical synthesis has to be environmentally friendly, whereas the majority of the solvents applied now are volatile organic substances that are inflammable, explosive, and harmful to the environment. In this regard, there are several alternative approaches in green chemistry including solvent less chemistry, use of dimethylcarbonate, carrying out reactions at supercritical conditions, use of ionic liquids, and as well as the use of the fluorous biphasic systems. Green chemistry should have green reactions and technologies. Following the 12 principles of green chemistry which require a certain strategy and expertise, commonly the set of indicators are used for assessing the critical points of the process. The safety analysis is a systematic study of the process, aimed at identifying potential causes of accidents, risk assessment, which they represent, and finding measures to reduce this risk. The substitution of hazardous materials by more benign ones is a core principle of green chemistry, and a key feature in ISD (Inherently safer design).

A current focus of chemical researches lies in the new activation methods for chemical processes. In particular, the past several decades have witnessed a growing emphasis on ultrasound-, microwave-, and photochemical-assisted reactions that are widely regarded today as green activation methods.

Based on the principles of sustainable development, this chapter discusses the relationship between sustainable development and environmental protection, and analyzes environmental problems which influence sustainable development in Belarus and in China. In order to eliminate those restrictive factors of sustainable development, the following environmental strategies should be taken for the ecological management system and ecolabel system.

Twenty principles of “green” chemistry mean that it efficiently uses inputs, i.e., raw materials which are mostly renewable, reduces the amount of waste, avoids the use of toxic and/or dangerous reagents and solvents in the production and consumption of chemical products. Specifically, Principle 7 formulates the requirements for raw materials: raw materials for the production of the product must be renewable, not exhaustible, if it is economically feasible and technologically possible. The notion of “raw materials” in this case should include not only the raw materials themselves, but also the energy consumption in the process of obtaining the final product, which leads to the production of waste such as carbon dioxide with all the ensuing consequences.

While apart from the traditional chemistry subjects such as organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, analytical chemistry, polymer chemistry, and environmental chemistry, the theories of green chemistry also consists of the latest achievements of sociology, anthropology, macroeconomics, and management. That’s why green chemistry is the scientific guidance to set up a new industrial system and reconstruct society in China and Belarus.