MEDIA STORY BANK: PROPOSALS TO RECEIVE FUNDING FROM THE GSK-SINGAPORE GREEN AND SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING PARTNERSHIP
Projects
Novel approach
Story opportunity
[Topic E.g., Transformations]
Large-scale chromatography with
Chromatography, considered as the most popular analytical tool is CO2 –the major culprit for climate change can be
green solvents: Fundamentals and
also extensively used for separating and purifying pharmaceutical used to make pharmaceutical manufacturing
novel-processes.
compounds. However, chromatography consumes large quantities of greener!
(typically flammable) organic solvents which pose safety issues for
storage and the eventual disposal of organic solvents is not pose
serious environmental issues. Further the separation of the
pharmaceutical compound from the organic solvent is energy
intensive.
Principal investigator: Assistant
Professor Arvind Rajendran
Institution: Nanyang Technological
University
Email: arvind@ntu.edu.sg
Prof. Rajendran and his group will study ways of reducing organic
solvents in chromatographic separations. They will consider replacing
significant quantities of organic solvents by using supercritical (high
pressure) CO2. Carbon dioxide is non-toxic, non-flammable and is
considered environmentally benign (Note that this replacement does
not contribute to global warming as it uses CO2 which is anyway
released as a waste product from several chemical processes). The
researchers will study this problem by understanding the
characteristics of high-pressure CO2 and by developing novel
processes that will aim to reduce solvent and energy consumption in
pharmaceutical manufacturing.
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