ABSTRACT
The development of new catalysts and catalytic processes are vitally important to the “green” synthesis of commodity chemicals. A signicant piece in the achievement of the goals of green chemistry, the use of catalysts, is enshrined in principle no. 9 of the Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry:1
With the initial publication of the tenets of green chemistry in the late 1990s came a challenge to develop new pathways of chemical synthesis that focused on preventing the formation of waste and maximizing atom economy (incorporation of all atoms in the starting product into the end product). Before the development of green chemistry, industries often looked to achieve a high percentage yield with very little regard for the amount of by-products that could accumulate along the synthetic pathway.2 With the institution of green chemistry, the focus changed from maximizing the mass of product obtained to maximizing the number of atoms from the starting material that are incorporated into the desired product. The ideal synthetic process will have both a high yield and high atom economy. One way to decrease the number of atoms wasted is to perform syntheses/transformations using a catalyst.
