API Syntheses in Aqueous Media: Assessing the Environmental Footprint en route from Academic Discovery to Industrial Applications as "Green Opportunity" for Process Chemistry

The use of designer surfactants to facilitate chemical transformations in water is a prime example for the knowledge transfer from academia to industry. Accordingly, chemistry in aqueous media aided by surfactants has emerged as a viable alternative to the use of organic solvents as part of the effort to transform chemical manufacturing into a green art. While classical metrics indicate tremendous savings on waste generation, a more exhaustive analysis including the intrinsic carbon footprint of such surfactants has never been conducted. The present work addresses this topic and outlines this analysis as part of a case study on the example of a widely known and applied working-horse of surfactant chemistry, TPGS-750-M. Meanwhile, the fate of the employed water is considered, and a holistic comparison to organic solvents is drawn. The key for a streamlined assessment is the reflected use of proper metrics, clearly pointing out a nonzero carbon footprint of such chemistries in aqueous media, though the techniques range at the greener end of the scale of reaction media.