Clean And Clever Chemistry
By Helen Potter
It's every PhD student's dream - to come up with something useful, profitable and that's so utterly brilliant it allows you to get your doctorate early. And that's exactly what Maaike Kroon of the Delft University of Technology has done.
Maaike, who will gain her degree on the 11th of December after only two years of study, has invented a new method for producing chemicals on an industrial scale. It is sustainable and inexpensive, does not produce chemical waste and uses significantly less energy than current methods.
The method involves using ionic liquids (fluid salts that act as very pure solvents) and super-critical carbon dioxide (no, not that kind of critical, this is when CO2 that has the properties of both a liquid and a gas). Simply by varying the pressure, reactions can be carried out much more quickly than is currently possible, then the products can be separated from the solvent by evaporation. As if that wasn't enough, the solvent and any catalyst used remain in the apparatus, ready for the next batch.
Maaike has tested her method on the synthesis of an existing medicine for Parkinson's disease - the process used 75% less energy than its industrial counterpart, the product was extremely pure and produced faster. Simply on this drug alone, her method could represent savings of 11 million euros a year.
Whilst there is no technical reason why the industry could not adopt this method, the large investment made in current chemical technology makes it unlikely to appear unless it is part of a new factory.
Maaike, who will gain her degree on the 11th of December after only two years of study, has invented a new method for producing chemicals on an industrial scale. It is sustainable and inexpensive, does not produce chemical waste and uses significantly less energy than current methods.
The method involves using ionic liquids (fluid salts that act as very pure solvents) and super-critical carbon dioxide (no, not that kind of critical, this is when CO2 that has the properties of both a liquid and a gas). Simply by varying the pressure, reactions can be carried out much more quickly than is currently possible, then the products can be separated from the solvent by evaporation. As if that wasn't enough, the solvent and any catalyst used remain in the apparatus, ready for the next batch.
Maaike has tested her method on the synthesis of an existing medicine for Parkinson's disease - the process used 75% less energy than its industrial counterpart, the product was extremely pure and produced faster. Simply on this drug alone, her method could represent savings of 11 million euros a year.
Whilst there is no technical reason why the industry could not adopt this method, the large investment made in current chemical technology makes it unlikely to appear unless it is part of a new factory.
Image: Kroma Kromalski
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